Friendships formed and tackles felt in physical Tour encounter
Oban Lorne 18s 24
Holy Trinity Catholic School (Ontario) 19
Tour match
Oban 18s entertained a fast and physical Holy Trinity at Glencruitten on Wednesday March 12 in what was to be a closely fought bruising encounter.
Kai Mackechnie escapes the clutches of a Canadian player. Photograph: Stephen Lawson.
The Canadians showed their physical intent from the first minute driving back Oban centre Kai Mackechnie in a fearsome tackle.
The first 25 minutes proved to be a real arm wrestle with both sides defences standing strong, most notably from Oban were the try saving tackles from Tikhon Vorobyov and Joe Corns.
With the Oban forwards slowly gaining the upper hand, enabling stand off Alexander Macdonald to find good field positions with his kicking, the hosts managed to exert some pressure on the visitors close to their line leading to captain Cammy Crowe taking a quick penalty to himself to power over for the first score after 25 minutes. Macdonald converted.
Five minutes later a lovely half break from Macdonald saw him offload to winger Vorobyov and the flying Ukrainian took off like a scalded cat leaving two defenders in his wake as he raced in from 30m for Oban’s second try.
Seemingly in control Oban defended a string of Canadian attacks until the final play of the half saw the visitors sneak over the try line to score their first points, closing the gap to 12-7 at the break.
The teams were piped onto the field by the OHS Pipe Band. Photograph: Stephen Lawson.
Oban started the second half quickly with driving runs from George Pagan, Kuba Koldziejczyk and Crowe taking Oban to within metres of the visitors try line. Quickly recycled ball saw hooker Franek Kupczak power over to score on 38 minutes with MacDonald again converting.
The next 10 minutes saw the game played between the 22m lines with both defences standing firm. However, the visitors were now getting the benefit of the doubt from the referee and took advantage of this scoring on 50 and 60 minutes to level the scores at 19-19 with 15 minutes to play.
Louis Smith pushes past the opposition. Photograph: Stephen Lawson.
Oban’s backs were now to the wall and they were forced into sustaining a period of intense pressure from the Canadians which they managed to do with Macdonald and Mackechnie relieving pressure with good clearance kicks.
One such punt took Oban into the visitors 22m area from which another quickly taken penalty from the alert Crowe saw him power his way over for his second try of the day crowning his man of the match performance with five minutes to go.
The Canadians threw everything at Oban in the final minutes of the game but once again the home defence stood firm until the final play when Oban managed to steal their opponents attacking ball to enable Macdonald to kick it out signalling the end of a tough, uncompromising contest between two evenly matched teams.
After the game the two teams socialised and forged new friendships whilst being well fed by Lindsay Macmillan and Julie Campbell from the Oban Ladies team followed by a fun quiz hosted by their teammate Caitlin Fowler.
Kuba Kolodziejczyk makes a charge up the wing. Photograph: Stephen Lawson.
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