Mills and Cairns double act at Ayr
The Twos played some sublime running rugby on a quagmire of
a pitch at Ayr to defeat Ayr 2XV by 40 pts to 15 pts in
Saturday's league encounter. It was, first and foremost, an
excellent team performance but there were some worthy
individual performances of note too. On the day we saw the
class of Ed Mills and a hat-trick from Robert Cairns. These
two filled out the first-half score sheet but we saw strong
performances from Sean Reddox against his old club, Mark
Ross enjoying a chance to show what he
can do, Derek Murray as elusive as ever and strong in
defence and Stuart Clark making timely breaks to keep the
forwards moving forward.
The pack
provided good ball all day and a highlight was the
appearance of Ally Ness after years out who ran on after 20
minutes right across the pitch and from the immediate
lineout, thumped some poor soul so hard he didn't know what
hit him. If the backs were the showmen, the forwards were
the real stars to provide such ample supplies of good ball
on a pitch getting worse by the minute. Thankfully it did
not rain throughout the match.
The first
score came just 4 minutes into the game. Ed Mills skipped
over the mud and the defence could only watch him as he
found Robert Cairns coming quickly to support and take Ed's
pass to dive over for the try. Ed missed the conversion,
hooking slightly. The ground conditions were not for
kickers. Trying to place the standing leg was a huge
problem and so it is great credit to Ed that this was the
last kick he missed and converted 5 from 6 on the day.
Twenty
minutes later Ed scored the second try and converted for a
12-0 lead. The Cairns/Mills double act gave us a reprise on
34 minutes as Robert scored his second try converted by Ed
to send us clear at half-time at 19-0. In their last few
matches the Twos have been quick to underline half-time
leads with a quick score in the second half, however, this
time the hosts scored a try after one minute with good
movement from their backs for their winger to score wide
right.
The Twos
stretched their lead on 48 minutes with, guess what, Cairns
with the try, Mills with the conversion. 26-5 and we were
getting out of sight. In truth, Ayr would never be in this
game except when they kept the ball in their forwards and
they scored from a rolling maul on 56 minutes.
We did
have to defend this tactic rather more than we wanted in
that second half but soon broke clear and scored a fine try
through Derek Murray. converted by Ed to take us out to
33-10. Ayr forwards fashioned another try in the 75th
minute. From the kick off, exerted pressure eventually took
its toll when, from a scrum five, Stuart slipped the ball
inside to Phil Bloomer who, running into a hole, crossed for
the final try. Ed converted to complete the win at 40-15.
The rugby
played by the Twos in the conditions was at times hard to
believe as they made light of the sapping mud with some very
fine running. There were many fine strong performances
throughout the team and even allowing for Robert's hat-trick
of tries, Ed Mills was the outstanding player on the day.
Hardly surprising really as we have been expecting as much
from him now that he seems to have shaken off injuries.
The
biggest grin of the day was spread across Neil Irving's face
at having played a major role in turning over his old club.
It was still there when he left Ayr.
