18's Boys - East Kilbride
Oban 18s 25 East Kilbride 0
Oban took on a physical East Kilbride team in wet and slippery conditions at Glencruitten on Saturday.
The visitors started well pushing the Oban pack back in the scrums and making good ground around the edges, but their attack never breached a well organised and tenacious Oban defence led my Cammy Crowe, Kuba Kolodziejczyk, Milo Llewelyn and Robbie Lockhart.
When Oban did gain possession centre Vinnie Buckley controlled the gane well mixing up his kicking to turn the East Kilbride defence and keep Oban going forward.
On 11 minutes with Oban now firmly in the game Scrum Half Joe Corns dummied from a ruck to break through the East Kilbride defence and knock 2 defenders out of his way to score, Arran Martin added the extras 7-0.
With the rain now lashing down Oban's game management continued to be good, choosing to kick for territory and put pressure on the East Kilbride kick returns to gain ground.
This caused panick amongst East Kilbride plsyers who chose to run from their own try line only to be knocked back by good Oban defence, on one such occasion good pressure from Buckley enabled Kolodziejczyk to go over for his second try of the season 12-0.
Oban's pressure defence continued and led to a penalty just before half time which Martin landed 15-0.
Oban dominance continued in the second half leading to another Martin penalty on 10 minutes 18-0.
On 17 minutes good work by Robert Gosling gained good ground up the left wing, from the resultant ruck Corns broke again but this time he cleverly passed inside to centre Martin who sped off to score under the post, Martin added the extras 25-0.
The remainder of the gane was played in the East Kilbride half and Oban will be disappointed not to have taken a few more scoring opportunities.
This was another improved performance from a side that is growing in confidence.
The coaches were particularly pleased with the teams workrate in defence, game management in poor conditions and discipline.
There were stand out performances from Kuba Kolodziejczyk, Arran Martin and Vinnie Buckley with George Pagan taking to flanker like a duck to water but this weeks man of the match goes to Scrum Half Joe Corns who added a bit of urgency to his already consistent form to keep the East Kilbride defence on their toes throughout the game.