Madras Blues u16 squad started the day with a presentation from Kingsbarns Golf Course and St Andrews Kilrymont Rotary of underarmour for the squad in recognition of their prevoius achievements and with hopes for more free flowing rugby.
Presentations over and all players now wearing their new underarmour, they started the match brightly despite playing into the sun and not collecting the starting kick off. From then on however, they played some wonderful powerful and flowing rugby to overcome a stuffy Queen Victoria School.
After some very strong drives from several players, Nairn Spence went over to score on the 15m line after a now-trademarked show and go opened the QVS defence enough to let him drive over the line. The conversion from Calum Stewart gave Madras a good start to build on. From then on, the forwards opened the game up for the backs to run at their opponents and also took the ball up themselves to great effect. The powerful running of the Blues forwards caused QVS problems throughout and further tries from forward drives came from Mark Guthrie and Lewis Bridgeman (2) to give the Blues a good lead at the end of the first half. Sadly it was a first half that they finished with just 14 men due a poor bit of judgement by a player coming to the aid of a colleague being struck by an opponent. Refs can only deal with what they see - a lesson learnt.
The second half started with Madras still with 14 men and although they now had the sun with them, QVS were definitely more up for the game in this half and started strongly. Some exceptional defensive work from Hamish Anderson, Jack McLean, and Guillermo Zamora bringing the QVS attacks to an end on numerous occasions. Madras took a while to reassess their positions in the match but after some wonderful linked rugby between the forwards and the backs, Thomas Delevaine-Stuart went in for the second half's first try and after that the team regained their confidence and went from strength to strength in terms of their individual and team skills. Further tries followed from Guillermo Zamora (who converted his own try), Hamish Anderson and two more from Mark Guthrie making his final tally 3 on the day.
QVS never gave up on the match and were unlucky on several ocassions not to get on the score sheet. Stray passes or Madras tackling the only thing that stopped them scoring. As ever, this was a very physical match but the Blues scrum were determined to take as much ball as they might in the day and from there the backs were able to run at their opponents as often as they might.
Final Score: Madras 62, QVS 0
Team:
Ewan Cameron, Nairn Spence, Lewis Bridgeman, Joshua Hogg, Jack Hughes, Jack McLean, Ewan Simpson, Mark Guthrie, Jamie Sayer, Lliam Chaplain, Angus Brown, Callum Sharratt, Calum Stewart, Thomas Delevaine- Stewart, Phil Hamilton, Guillermo Zamora, Hamish Anderson, Jack Stewart
Waterboy – Shaw Palmer