CUMNOCK 22 MCLAREN 18

It was third versus fourth as Cumnock welcomed McLaren down to Broomfield as the home team looked to put some space between their nearest rivals.

Heavy overnight rain and a strong crosswind did not make conditions for a flowing game of rugby and any high ball was a lottery. From the off Cumnock struggled with the conditions and were under pressure from the kick off with the visitors camped deep in the Nock half. The home defence was organised and coped with the early advances of their opponents, who built some good phases. As McLaren looked to create an opening Graham Hunter pounced on a flat pass and ran in the first score of the game from a lung bursting 70 metres out, Jack Reilly added the extras for a 7-0 lead.

With the breakaway score against the run of play it would be interesting how Cumnock dealt with the restart, unfortunately the unclaimed kick resulted in more territory advantage to McLaren who finally crossed the line to square the score 7- 7.

The home team started to make some moves into the McLaren half and were the more likely to play some passing rugby despite the conditions, an infringement by the visitors allowed Reilly to add to the score to take the lead 10-7. However, as before the home team failed to deal with the restart and allowed the visitors the opportunity for the penalty which they took to square the game,10 -10.

With their tails up McLaren again took the game back into the Nock half and some uncharacteristic poor tackling allowed another score which was not converted to take a deserved lead 10-15. Before the half finished the visitors added another penalty to stretch their lead to 10-18.

Despite dominating both the scrum and lineout Cumnock had nothing to show from their first half endeavours and while they could have asked for more protection from the referee the simple handling errors were hurting them more.

The second half saw a revitalised team emerge, while the restarts remained a problem and any kick saw a lacklustre chase allowing the ball to be returned unopposed, it was a more direct performance from the home team. This resulted in most of the second half played in the visitors half, only a stout defensive showing by McLaren stopped further home scores with two attempts held up.

As the Cumnock attack increased the McLaren defence got more ragged, an impressive Nock driving maul looked to be brought down on the line and another high dangerous tackle in front of the posts went unpunished. Undeterred the home team plugged away until Donald Hunter crashed over from five metres out to make sure of the score, again Reilly added the points to bring the game to with a point.

The pressure was now all on the visitors, another melee in the corner eventually allowed the Nock space to move the ball wide for Jack Reilly to cross for the score. Unfortunately his missed kick kept the score at 22-18 to make the final ten minutes more interesting than they should have been. For the first time in the second half McLaren made in-roads to the Cumnock half but a good defence and a dominant scum held out to record a good win.

Man of the match was scum half Aidan Kerr who stood up to numerous unpunished late hits to complete another good game.