Draw keeps EK top of the table
Under-strength side share points
East Kilbride ...... 16 Newton Stewart 16
Richard Beaton East Kilbride Rugby Club stayed both unbeaten and top of the league on Saturday when sharing the spoils with Newton Stewart.
Accompanying a deterioration in performance over the past few weeks, coach Fraser Watt has had less and less resource at his disposal as he looks to constantly rotate his playing squad and Saturday saw him with the fewest players yet to pick from.
An indication of the paucity brought on by work, holidays and injury is that the reserve team were forced to scratch for the first time this season, unable to muster sufficient bodies for their scheduled trip to Kilmarnock.
Once the action started a cogent argument could be made on both sides as to whether the enforced changes / rotation policy were having an impact on East Kilbride’s play, but in truth what we got was more of the same.
The pack were completely dominant at the scrum, maintained parity along the touchline but were second best around the tackle area.
The backs looked good enough individually, less convincing as a unit. This has pretty much been the motif for the past six weeks, but the difference on Saturday was that the opposition had a clear game plan and stuck to it rigidly.
Newton Stewart knew it would be suicidal to engage EK in a forwards battle, so they didn’t. As soon as the ball was put into the scrum it was gone, sometimes rugby league-style. When EK had the put-in, the referee was pressurised by Newton Stewart testing what he considered legal.
In open play the visitors ran onto the ball with intent and competed ferociously on the ground. In short, Newton Stewart played intelligent, disciplined rugby and could probably consider themselves unfortunate that Jimmy McLaren’s try and three Bert Blackwood penalties stopped them taking the four points.
Given the disruption caused to team selection in the week preceding then East Kilbride were not too distraught at coming through Saturday with their unbeaten record intact.
The side that finally saw the light of day was a good way off first choice and failed to exploit their physical superiority against a very smart Newton Stewart unit who played very much to their strengths.
Although EK will remain top even if Newton Stewart win their game in hand, a degree of initiative has been handed to their unbeaten opponents given that they have escaped Torrance House without conceding any ground to their rivals.
Additionally, Carrick are very much back in the promotion mix and as the second half of the season kicks-off this Saturday – EK travel to Helensburgh – these three sides have their eyes on the prize. Kick-off on Saturday is 3pm. EK TEAM: 1. E. Beaton, 2. Aitken, 3. Watt, 4. S. Ferguson, 5. Dalgleish, 6. McLaren, 7. O’Neil, 8. Rosie, 9. Murray, 10. B. Blackwood, 11. Ferguson, 12. Dixon, 13. Greenfield, 14. R. Beaton, 15. Green. EAST KILBRIDE Carrick Newton Stewart Garnock Allan Glens Annan Kilmarnock Oban Lorne Irvine Helensburgh P 9 9 8 9 9 8 9 8 9 8 W 7 6 6 6 4 3 3 3 1 1 L 0 2 0 3 5 5 5 5 8 7 D DIF PT 2 128 38 1 103 32 2 147 31 0 69 29 0 -6 22 0 -8 18 1 -96 15 0 -8 14 0 -143 10 0 -186 8