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Weekly review for Ellon Rugby - S1/2, Senior Festival and School 7s

Weekly review for Ellon Rugby - S1/2, Senior Festival and School 7s

Gareth D Kemp24 Apr 2014 - 15:22

No training for the Juniors, instead S1/2 played Huntly at the Meadows in a friendly, in the afternoon there was a Senior friendly festival.

In the S1/2 game, Huntly came to Ellon with a really good team, and started in the first seconds by scoring from their own 22 and running back to score under the posts. During the first 20 minutes Ellon let Huntly play and didn’t move up in defence quick enough. This led to Huntly scoring 6 tries. The second 20, Ellon started stronger with good attacking move running blind side from the back of a ruck and a score for Jordan Gray. However Huntly got themselves back into gear and scored four tries this third. Ellon played better rugby, moving the ball well on attack, especially down the left wing with Joe Valdor. The final third Ellon really worked hard and scored two tries and a convertion to Huntly’s 2 tries and convertions. The first Ellon this third went to Cody Bartlett from good passing wide and a run into the corner. The final Ellon try was down to great play by Ryan Hampton and support by Jordan Gray who took the ball and scored. Cameron Innes made the conversion. Over all Ellon were out played, not by the Huntly team, but by three of their players who were exceptional. The centre scored 9 of their 12 tries and all their conversions, while the flanker scored the rest. Ellon need to work a little more on better defence, and running straighter lines in attack.

In the afternoon there was a four way festival involving Dyce, Aberdeen Wanderers a Dutch team called Rush and a mixed Ellon team. The Ellon team had a couple of firsts, mostly seconds and a few Golden Oldies old boys!
Up first for Ellon was Aberdeen Wanderers, who where a much tougher team than Ellon expected. In half an hour games it was 0 – 0 at half time and after three missed tries, Ellon finally got a score in the corner with Ryan Bowron. This was followed up with late trade mark pick and go by James Halmshaw to score a try, converted by 17 year old Nathan Emery. Final score 12 – 0.
Second was the Dutch team Rush who had a few players short. This was made up by Ellon with 5 players. Adain Train stated the scoring for Ellon by catching the kick off, beating three men and scoring, followed up by a fantastic try for Chris Fearon, who is new to the club this season. Chris scored under the posts and even Jake Wills couldn’t miss from there! With 12 – 0 at half time Ellon were a little complacent in the second half and their borrowed players did very well in passing wide for Rush to score twice. The second try was the winner as the conversion took them into the lead. A butchered 22 drop out, led to turn over and Ovenstone passed quickly for a Rush winning score. Final score 12 – 14.
The final game was Ellon v Dyce. Ellon expected a tough game, so played a little harder and with more passion. The first score came to the young Ellis Swainstone who took the offload from James Halmshaw. Both these two had been working well together all day and there is a potential great partnership there. Next Stuart Hackett came off the bench to score and show why he was vice captain this season. Then Nathan Emery showing the youth section is developing some outstanding players, scored a great try involving miss passes and over laps. This was converted by prop Kieran Leith who wanted a score for the day! Halmshaw then handed off two players, beat two more and then passed to Jake Wills to score under the posts. Jake then showed that he can miss in front of the posts! Jimmy Young then used his side step and scored, leaving a final try for Halmshaw who was set up by Nathan Emery and some missed blocking by Douglas Sharp! Final score was 36 – 0 and Ellon made great use of the whole team with the youngest being 17 and the oldest being 50!
Due to a draw at the top of the table, the winner came down to Rush V Ellon which was won by Rush. Congratulations to Rush and a great day was had by all four teams!

Finally Ellon Academy had a schools U16 7s tournament at Garioch on Wednesday. With Ellon Rugby Youth really working hard at their 7s training, this fed into the school team. With three easy games in the pool games, the quarter final and semi-final were both hard. They beat Huntly 25 – 15 and then Lathallan 14 – 12, to set up a final against Westhill. With Ellon and Westhill being healthy rivals at the top of local schools rugby it was a good win for Ellon to beat them 19 – 5, with Ellon dominate for the entire game, apart from an early blip. Ellon let Westhill score first, but returned 19 points in a row and defence was awesome.

Ellon Vice President said "This festival was a great, fun event for all four teams. Players were loaned and the game was played in the mannor is should be." "It was brilliant to see the young lads play up alongside firsts, seconds and some old boys"!

"Also all the hard work done by the club and school in 7s training seems to be paying off with the U18 winning in Moray, the Academy winning midweek and hopefully the club U16 and U18 team winning this month."

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