Convincing Win for Stornoway

ICD 0 v 106 Stornoway

As the scoreline suggests, this was a game in which Stornoway dominated from start to finish. If last week’s victory over Strathspey was a workman like performance built on defence, this was a victory based purely on attack. 16 tries, 13 conversions, thus leading to Stornoway’s highest ever score in competitive rugby.

Stornoway made the journey to Inverness without a number of first team players: Alex Granville, Willem Scheppers and Roddy Graham were missing from the pack, while Jerome Curran and Quinten Nel were the absentees from the back line.

Stornoway were simply too good on the day and were 24 - 0 up and had the bonus point in the bag after just 18 minutes. They ended the half leading 50 - 0 and were playing some fantastic free flowing rugby which Craig Dunain simply couldn’t live with.

The second half was a similar affair. Stornoway were able to tally up a further 56 points with the try scorers on the day ending up Euan Macleod(5), Darren Beattie(5), Angus Williams(3), CJ Macdonald(2) and Davy Graham notching one.

Stornoway coach Angus ‘Bubble’ Mackay was pleased with his side’s focus: “It’s sometimes hard to concentrate in games like these, there is so much space to attack you sometimes over play the situation, but we seemed to keep our shape for most of the game.

“It would be fair to say that had Stornoway managed to execute all their chances then the scoreline would have been even greater.”

He added: “We had a number of scoring opportunities which we simply threw away by making the wrong decision, either kicking the ball or forcing the pass. We need to understand that these chances will be harder to come by against the better sides, so we need to take them when they are there”.

There were lots of positives from the performance and again the ability to use players from the bench, rotating positions etc, is clearly the key to the energised performances in recent fixtures.

Again the pack were able to dominate all aspects of play on the day. Scrum and lineout were all but faultless and the support lines and handling of the forwards were impressive.

The back line are proving, when given good ball, simply breath taking. Led by Peter Hobson at stand off, who has any number of speedy runners outside him. Euan Macleod and Darren Beattie being the pick of the bunch on the day.

Stornoway now focus on their next match, away to league leaders Highland RFC on the 26th of November. They will go in to this fixture confident in their own ability and will hope that having a free Saturday this weekend might see a few players able to rest and recover from injury.