Mackie 41

Peebles 19

George Blair

at The Oriam

PEEBLES Under 16s' cup run came to an end on Sunday, on the indoor rugby pitch at The Oriam in Edinburgh.

Lining up against Mackie Academy, they had already been hit with the later withdrawal of influential back row Oliver Landers, and within ten minutes of kick off, things went from bad to worse.

After some early Peebles pressure from the kick off, the Stonehaven side started to piece together some slick moves and crossed the try line after eight minutes for a converted score.

With the restart failing to go 10 metres, Mackie were straight on the offensive again from a scrum and scored out on the left despite the attempted tackle of full back Liam Forsyth.

Unfortunately, Forsyth was helped from the field clutching his arm, which was later found to be broken.

Not to be affected by this though, Peebles started to retain possession more and eventually started to attack the Mackie line.

After a Mackie clearance, Peebles decided to run the ball from under their own posts with winger David Cathcart scorching up the wing, before cutting inside and being brought down just inside the Mackie 22.

From the resultant scrum, Peebles drove towards the line and number 8 Finlay Sinclair went over for their first score, which was converted by James Thomson.

Four minutes later, the red and whites were again camped on the opposition try line and this time Daniel Askew touched the ball down to level the scores.

The score remained 12-12 up to the interval.

From the restart, Mackie started to really pressurise the Peebles defence.

With Peebles failing to clear their lines and instead trying to run the ball out from their own line, they were adding to the pressures themselves.

Despite some sterling defence, the pressure told after 11 minutes with a deft cross-field kick from the Mackie 10 saw the winger collect and cross the line for a converted score.

A further score two minutes later was compounded with Peebles centre Patrick Cannon leaving the field injured.

After this, Peebles were always chasing the game and although they managed to steady the ship in the next 10 minutes, they then lost Frey Maciver with a bad knee injury.

Mackie then stepped it up once again and scored two quick tries, leaving Peebles with a mountain to climb with 10 minutes left on the clock.

Mackie completed their scoring with a converted try two minutes later, before Alexander Walpole intercepted a pass to run in a consolation try for Peebles with 90 seconds left.

Mackie now progress to the final next month at BT Murrayfield, where the take on Boroughmuir, who were 12-10 winners over Hawick.

Despite the result, this young squad should be congratulated for how well they’ve done over the last few months, with just over half of Sunday’s squad still eligible for under 16 rugby next season!

Peebles Under 16s: 1. Ben White; 2. Robbie Weir; 3. Arran Cameron (c); 4. Finn Colledge; 5. Daniel Askew; 6. Ewan Hunter; 7. Evan Maciver; 8. Finlay Sinclair; 9. Frey Maciver; 10. James Thomson; 11. David Cathcart; 12. Oscar Weipers; 13. Patrick Cannon; 14. Cameron Boak. 15. Liam Forsyth; 16. Reece Hunter; 17. Malcolm Rodwell. 18. Ruaridh Johnson; 19. Luc Caulton. 20. Alexander Walpole. 21st man Ruairidh Smith.