A festival of tries from Mid Argyll girls in Oban
Mid Argyll’s under-14 girls dazzled with dozens of tries at their first club rugby festival.
On Sunday May 1 the team of nine Mid Argyll girls travelled to Oban to meet teams from Mull, Lochaber, Glasgow’s Cartha QP as well as hosts Oban Lorne.
The girls were excited to be heading to their first rugby festival and delighted that, before the game, former Scottish Rugby president Dee Bradbury made time to chat with the team and coach Drew Buckley, telling them how good it was to see so many girls from across Argyll now taking part in rugby.
Mid Argyll’s opening game was against Lochaber. All the girls’ training paid off and they soon took the lead.
The final score in this game was 12-6 to Mid Argyll with the girls all sharing the tries between them.
The girls were straight back on after this game to take on Mull.
Mull took the lead with a great individual try, but this seemed to fire the Lochgilphead team into action and, following some superb running and passing, they were soon on level terms.
Mid Argyll then showed their competitive side with some very strong tackling and defending that stopped Mull adding to their score.
Mid Argyll then went on to score another 10 tries with only one in reply and the game finished 11-2.
Mid Argyll’s next game was against a very strong Cartha side. The girls picked up where they left off against Mull and, although they traded tries with Cartha for the early part of the game, Mid Argyll’s fitness showed through towards the end and, with a quick flurry of tries, they won their third game of the day 13 tries to nine.
Some of the Mid Argyll girls then jumped in and played for Mull against Lochaber, Mull having suffered a few injuries.
By this time Mid Argyll had picked up a few of their own injuries as the girls threw themselves into every tackle and challenge that came their way.
This didn’t stop them putting a huge amount of effort into the final game of the day against Oban.
The game was played at a ferocious speed with the two teams throwing everything at each other.
The final whistle went just after Oban had scored the final try of the game meaning Mid Argyll suffered their only defeat with a 6-5 loss.
The parents couldn’t quite believe how well the team had played and what determination they put into each game.
A huge amount of credit for these performances goes to coaches Drew Buckley and Donald Self, who train the girls after school every week.
If any S1 - S3 girls from Lochgilphead High or Tarbert Academy would like to give rugby a try, they are welcome to attend training at the Lochgilphead joint campus after school on Tuesdays from 4pm - 5pm. No experience necessary to start playing.