Ross micros take flight as kids get rugby taster
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THERE was an air of excitement at the Naval grounds in Invergordon last Saturday as Ross Sutherland welcomed even more children to its thriving mini section.
Micro rugby has been on the cards for a while and with new coaches recruited in the form of Paul Whitty and Steve Dawson, the first session was a great success with ten boys and girls taking part.
There’s plenty room for more though and new players in the P1-3 age group are welcome to come along to the club any Saturday for a 10-11am session.
It’s non-contact at this age and a great way of introducing kids to the sport in safe and friendly surroundings.
On Sunday, September 30 Ross Sutherland will be hosting their own mini festival of rugby for teams from all over the north of Scotland. The event will start at 11am, come along if you can, for more info please go to the clubs website. http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/rosssutherlandrfc/
ROSS Sutherland travelled to Elgin on Saturday with six changes from the previous week due to injuries and other unavailability.
Undeterred, the Stags got on with it and some very different positional changes occurred, none more so than club president, Alan Maclean, who found himself wearing the nine shirt with winger Ross Mellis outside him in at the 10 spot. From here the positions became a little more orthodox in the backs.
The pack included John "Peachy" Reid at blindside wing forward for his first full 80 minutes with the first team and an admirable job he did, earning him "man of the match" for his efforts.
The sun blazed down unlike the hurricane conditions in Invergordon last week and hopes were high for some good open play.
The opening minutes of the game saw Ross start the brighter and on six minutes Moray conceded a penalty within range for Ross Mellis to open his account as the duty kicker, 0-3. In open play it was obvious that this Ross side had not spent long enough with each other on the training ground and isolated ball carrying left the team open to turnovers and quick counter attacks from the Moray team, this was rewarded with a penalty on 20 minutes, 3-3. Another infringement from Ross gave the hosts the lead five minutes later, 6-3. A breakaway score one minute later gave Moray a bigger lead 11-3.
An outstanding 70m trademark run from full back Gareth Braddick, slicing through the opposition defence and then a pass on the five metre line to put Kris Thomas in for an easy score under the posts and conversion from Mellis brought things around once more to 11-10 and when Ross stalwart Stuart "Coot" Macpherson crashing over the whitewash to give the lead back to Ross Mellis unlucky not to convert, 11-15. Just before half time a penalty to Moray took the half time score to 14-15.
A series of blood injuries forced some radical changes in the Ross squad, and whilst some hasty pitch side patching was taking place Moray forced a penalty and regained the lead seven minutes in, 17-15. A period of decent interchanges then took place with some good rugby on display by both sides cancelling each other out when an interception went Morays way for an easy run in 24-15. In a similar fashion five minutes later Moray extended a now commanding lead to 31-15.
On 75 minutes Mike Gordon, now playing from scrum half, linked nicely with No eight Ken Mackenzie and scored for Ross to bring the score to 31-20, only to have the score negated by some tired play a minute later and gift Moray with another easy run in 38-20. Mike Gordon popped up again with a minute to go and scored a converted try to bring the final score to 38-27.
This earned Ross a 4 try bonus point and narrowly missed the losing bonus point.
Coach, Rob Parkes said: "This was a gutsy display from the lads and some exceptional performances from guys playing out of position, our set piece held up well and we weren’t afraid to run some moves from the backs to ask questions of the defence, again as last week, scoring tries is not the problem, stopping the mistakes that allow the opposition to score theirs is."
ROSS Sutherland Under 16 youth team got their campaign off to a winning start at the home of Aberdeen Wanderers. The Ross team came out on top of a hard fought game with a seven tries to four victory. The Ross scorers were Josh Holloway (2), Gordon Ross, Cameron Munro (all Tain HS), Alan Bragazzi (Golspie HS), Jake Geddis (Dornoch Academy) and Henry Pearce (Invergordon HS). Callum Sangster (Invergordon HS) and Joe Eaglesham (Alness (HS) were in the thick of the action. Aberdeen Wanderers finished the stronger but the Ross team were able to hold on to a 35-26 lead for a great start to the season.
