18's Boys - Livingston

Oban took on a big Livingston side on a sunny Saturday at Glencruitten.

The home team started well with big hits from Robbie Lockhart and Reece Lawrie rocking the Livingston team back.

On 6 minutes the first of many Cammy Crowe runs followed by quick ruck ball enabled scrum half Joe Corns to whip the ball away to the rampaging Daniel Grant to force his way over for the first try of the game and his first for Oban Lorne,  Arran Martin added the extras 7-0.

Oban controlled the next 15 minutes of the game with midfield trio of Milo Llewelyn, Vinnie Buckley and Arran Martin keeping the opposition at bay with dominant tackles.

On 22 minutes Livingston finally breached the Oban defence with their No8 picking up from a short range scrum and diving over 7-5.

Oban hit back immediately with Reece Lawrie stealing a Livingston ball and quickly moving the ball to Joe Corns whose sharp pass put JJ Blackley through a gap, knocking two would be defenders out of gis way, JJ then offloaded to the omnipresent Llewelyn who made good ground before passing onto hard working hooker Franeck Kupczak to power over for Obans second, Martin duly added the extras 14-5.

With Oban now firmly in the ascendancy a well worked lineout move saw the ball moved quickly to Vinnie Buckley who then broke the gain line and exchanged passes with winger David Simpson before offloading to Cammy Crowe to cross the line for Obans third, dead eyed Martin added the extras 21-5.

Just on half time Cammy Crowe took a quick penalty and forced his way through 3 would be tacklers to score his second, Martin added the extras 28-5.

Livingston started the second half well using their big players to drive into the Oban defence but Oban held firm with Llewelyn to the fore ably assisted by Kuba, Corns Crowe and Lawrie.

Livingston  finally crossed the line 10 minutes into the second half 28-12.

Once again Oban hit back straight away with another well worked lineout move, with Beinn Grey leaping high to take the catch before slipping the ball to Crowe to burst through the middle of the Livingston defence, quick ruck ball enabled Franeck Kupczak to crash over for his second of the game, once again converted by the impressive Martin with his best kick of the game making it 5 kicks from 5, 35-12.

Despite no more scores Oban controlled the remainder of the game and rarely looked threatened.

This was an improvement on last weeks performance which saw the forwards in particular make their mark on the game, clearly benefitting from the training sessions deleiverd by 1st XV players Connor Ferris and Corrie Louw.

There were a number of great performances but this week's man of the match goes to Cammy Crowe for his work in attack and defence.

Next up is Ardrossan at Glencruitten on 7th Septemeber where we hope  to build on this weekends performance.