Good away win for Oban Lorne

Paisley 22 Oban Lorne 32 Tennent’s West Division 2

Oban Lorne travelled to Paisley on Saturday to play the side who finished third in the division last year, narrowly missing out on promotion, and being hotly tipped to win the league this season.

A strong Oban team showed only a couple of changes from the team who were successful against Cumbernauld the previous week with Lorne Sinclair coming in at hooker and David Cameron taking his place on the wing. There was also a start on the wing for Oban High School PE teacher Callum Murray.

Paisley kicked off and won a penalty almost straight from the kick-off with Oban knocking the ball on and player playing the ball in front. The Paisley kicker dispatched the kick with ease – an early warning for Oban.

Oban responded by racing up the other end and after some fast and accurate rucking created space for vice captain Stephen Povey to cross the line for Oban’s first try of the afternoon after just six minutes of play. Almost straight from the kick-off Oban were to double their try tally for the afternoon after some good attacking play by the backs took Oban back into the Paisley 22. Back row player Matt Walker was on hand to cross the try line next to the posts. Finlay Carmichael converted to increase the Oban lead to 12 points to three after 10 minutes.

Oban were causing Paisley a number of problems with the speed of their attacking play. The Oban pack were outworking their much heavier opponents and creating good quick ruck ball for the backs to use with outside centre Iwan Roberts and fullback Craig Wright using their pace to stress the defence.

Finlay Carmichael was to extend the Oban lead with another well-struck penalty kick after Paisley were caught offside at the ruck. Oban 15– Paisley 3.

Craig Wright was next on the scoreboard with another scything run down the wing outpacing Paisley to score behind the posts. Finlay Carmichael stepped up to slot the conversion to put Oban 22 to points to three ahead.

This brought an end to the scoring in the first half and the message at half time was to keep the work rate high and keep the ball in hand to keep challenging the defence.

Paisley made a couple of positional changes at half time which really challenged the Oban defence and allowed them to get a period of ascendency. The Oban midfield struggled to adapt to this change and this allowed Paisley to claw back a couple of tries to bring them back into contention in the game: Paisley 17–Oban 22.

Oban rang the changes to try and freshen up the team bringing on Stanley Lister, Kyle Graham and Daniel Speirs. This seemed to have the desired effect with Oban managing to get back in control of the game.

Finlay Carmichael managed to give Oban a bit of breathing space with another wellstruck penalty kick: Oban 25–Paisley 17.

With Oban raising the pace of the game again as their fitness started to show, they managed to return to the fastpaced game that had served them so well in the first half.

The bonus point try was finally achieved after another scintillating attack involving both backs and forwards with the ball out to the wing for David Cameron to slide in at the corner for his first senior try. This was again converted by Carmichael to move Oban on to 32 points.

There was still time for Paisley to score another try as they capitalised on an Oban mistake in their 22 to cross for their third try of the afternoon and bring the final score to Paisley 22–Oban 32.

There were lots of positives again for the Oban coach to take from this game although the defensive lapses will need to be addressed in training.

This week Oban travel to Helensburgh for an Argyll derby where they would look to continue their good run of form. Helensburgh are no strangers having also dropped down from West 1 last season with Oban winning both home and away last season.

Oban Lorne’s next home game is the Tennents West Shield semi-final at home to Dalziel on Saturday September 29.