16's Boys - Ardrossan
A young Oban 16s took on a much bigger Ardrossan at Glencruitten on Saturday and after just 10 minutes the team knew they were in for a tough game, with the Ardrossan forwards winning lots of ball to release their speedy backs to score 2 tries and lead 0-12.
Oban didn't fold and fought back with determined runs from Stasiu Kupczak, Mark Hewitt, Eachaan Louw and Josh Olds testing the Ardrossan defence leading to a penalty. Which, Jake Jevons tapped and passed to Louis Smyth whose well timed pass saw Dougie Brown power over to score, Finn MacKechnie added the extras 7-12.
Two further Ardrossan tries took the score to 7-26 at half time.
5 minutes into the second half Ardrossan scored again 7-33.
This was followed by the try of the match by Man of the match Josh Olds, when he collected a clearance kick in his own half and proceeded to outpace half the opposition to score, MacKechnie added the extras 14-33.
Ardrossan scored the next try.
This was followed by a great Oban try which saw scrum half Finlay Cottier expertly release the hard working Dougie Brown to score his second, following a number of forward drives and great rucking.
Finn MacKechnie completed his 100% strike rate from the tee to make the score 21-40.
This marked the end of the scoring for Oban, with Ardrossan adding another 3 scores to make the final score 21 -59.
This team is very young and so far this season have come faced much older and bigger opposition, the forwards once again demonstrated that they can compete with any team with Dougie Brown, Josh Olds, Jake Jevons, Toby Wilson, Stasiu Kupczak and Eachaan Louw all playing well.
There were some great performances from Conan Burns, Louis Smyth, Finn MacKechnie and Finlay Cottier in the backs, with Lewis Cairns making numerous tackles at full back.
The younger boys despite feeling a bit bruised and battered will learn from these experiences.
Next up is Mid Argyll away on Sunday 15th September.