Date:
Kick-off:
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Result:
West 2nd XV League Division 1 – Dumfries Saints 114 – Annan 0
The seconds welcomed to Park Farm near neighbours Annan who fielded a side made up a couple of old heads with the remainder being youngsters. To their eternal credit the young visitors, turned up, played their hearts out and gave their all for their team.
However as the score line suggests there was a gulf in class and power which they were unable to come to terms with.
In a side currently, sitting at the top of the league, the Saints fielded a strong outfit with a front row of Robertson, Brown and Milligan. In the boiler house, the highly impressive Kennedy packed down alongside Ali Mather and an abrasive back row of Crichton, Renwick and Haggerty completed a formidable pack of forwards
Behind the scrum, Minty and Duncan were to play a pivotal role at halfback and the reinvigorated centre pairing of Burgess and Davidson kept the Annan midfield on their toes. With the seconds fielding the same back three of Smith, Torrance and Mack for the fourth consecutive match there was pace to burn out wide and from deep.
The bench consisted of Justin Little, Ian Kerr, James Cox, Grant Drennan and Ulster student Mark McLatchie making an excellent debut for the club. All of the bench were used with three of them getting on the score sheet.
The game kicked off with Annan having the breeze at their back. With the home forwards rampant and the visiting defence, trying man fully to stem the tide it took some 15 minutes for the deadlock to be broken. A Burgess break following a good line out saw the ball shipped wide to Torrance who crossed for the opening score. Duncan missed the difficult conversion.
This opened the floodgates and further tries followed in rapid succession from, Kennedy, Smith, Mack, McLatchie interspersed with doubles from Minty and Mather. Duncan converted six to make the half time score 57 – 0 to the home side
With the home side completely dominant, the second half saw a further fifty seven points added through nine tries courtesy of Torrance and Mather who notched hat tricks, Davidson, Brown, Burgess, Little, Crichton, and Drennan. Duncan added a further four conversions and Gavin Mack also kicked a couple to make the final score Saints 2nd’s 114 – Annan 2nd’s 0
Whilst the score line indicates a comfortable victory this should not take away from the composure and skill of the home team, nor diminish the effort put in by a brave, young Annan side. Next weekend Saints play host to Helensburgh who Annan beat last weekend.
