Orkney were confirmed as winners of their pool in Division 5 Caledonia A with victory over their nearest rivals.
But, truth be told, the encounter with RAF Lossiemouth is not a game which will live long in the minds of either those who took part or those on the touchline.
Having been treated to two cracking matches at Picky against St Andrew’s and then Selkirk, perhaps it was expecting too much for the Orkney team to raise their game to those levels for a third time.

The first half was a pretty drab affair, with Orkney lucky to go into the interval with a 10-5 lead, after Lossiemouth enjoyed the lion’s share of possession and appeared to have the edge up front.
Orkney took an early lead after Lossiemouth’s forwards were guilty of an infringement during a ruck.
With the freshening breeze at his back, this gave James Linklater the chance of three points from directly in front of the posts, just outside the 22. He duly made no mistake with the kick.

With conditions underfoot proving quite slippy, plus the wind, both sides were guilty of a series of handling errors and infringements, which meant the game had no real flow.
Orkney’s best chance of a try early on came from an accurate kick through from Erlend Hutchison followed up by Andy McGill’s good chase.
Lossiemouth proved they could be dangerous on the break, winger Richard Rutherford showing his pace down the left, breaking a couple of half-hearted tackles only to be stopped deep inside the Orkney 22.
However, Lossiemouth gave away possession by encroaching within 10 yards of the line-out which followed, and Orkney cleared.

The visitors then took the lead on 15 minutes, with poor Orkney cover to blame.
Firstly, Lossiemouth number eight Lance Tallett broke through Erland Drever’s tackle to make significant progress into Orkney territory, and when the ball was set up, centre Scott Lamport had no trouble locating a gaping hole in the home side’s back line to score.
The conversion was missed, but the score gave the visitors an injection of confidence and the forwards started to boss it up front, getting a big shove on and pushing Orkney back into their own 22.
However, when play broke down, referee Ian Rushbrook – who was to have a busy second half – awarded the scrum put-in to Orkney.

With the half hour mark looming, Orkney had not really threatened the Lossiemouth line – in fact it was the visitors who almost extended their lead, a knock-on saving the home side after a long pass to the powerful centre Seta Vunivalu.

With half time approaching, Orkney finally started to come into the game. Their best piece of play saw the ball spun out to Andrew Cromarty, on as a replacement for Linklater, who showed a good turn of foot down the left.
Unfortunately, his shovel-pass inside under challenge was knocked-on, but this piece of play hinted at better things ahead.
And it wasn’t long before Orkney were in the lead.

It came from a well-worked line-out move. The ball was taken by the ever reliable McGill, who quickly fed scrum half Al Watson and his speedy side-step completely wrong-footed the Lossiemouth defence and he darted through, powering his way past the full back to touch down.

With Linklater off the field, John Dearness stepped up to add the two points.
This gave Orkney some momentum going into the second half, and a few well chosen words at the interval saw the home side start much the better.
The lead was extended inside five minutes of the restart, Al Watson again sprinting over from close range in the right corner.

Kicking from a difficult angle and against the wind, Dearness struck the ball sweetly to add the two-points and suddenly Orkney were well in the lead – 17-5.
Fair play to Lossiemouth, however, who came back into the game.
A good chip kick into the corner gave them excellent field position, and when Orkney were penalised for taking too long over the throw-in, Lossiemouth opted to go for the try with a tap kick. However, an elementary mistake, with two players crossing, gave Orkney the chance to clear.

Lossiemouth continued to press and were awarded another penalty, which this time they elected to kick, reducing the deficit to 17-8 close to the hour mark.
This was a close as they got, as Orkney took control of the game.
A spell of pressure through four phases of play got Orkney to the Lossiemouth line, but backs-to-the-wall defence saw Lee Thomson unable to ground the ball.
With the crowd calling for the ball to be fed wide as more and more Lossiemouth players were sucked in, Hutchison eventually made numbers in the back count, and scored in the left corner to extend the lead to 22-8.

By now both sides were guilty of losing their discipline. Ed ‘Rambo’ Russell, who thrives on the physical side of the game was yellow-carded for a high tackle, and he was soon followed by a Lossiemouth forward, who did not heed referee Rushbrook’s warning about repetitive fouling.
Then Lossiemouth – who by this stage were arguing amongst themselves – were reduced even further when front-row forward Scott Gillan was sent off for throwing a punch. This further reduced the spectacle of the game as it meant uncontested scrums.

As the game drew to a close, it was Orkney who were well in command now, and two further scores saw them extend the gap between the sides.
First, it was James Linklater who went over in the corner, after the pack had set up good possession, and deep into time added on, Andrew Cromarty capped a fine performance when he scored following a break out wide down the left.
Not a vintage performance, but job done.

Orkney: E. Drever, D. Sutherland, L. Thomson, K. Sinclair, S. Spence, K. Pepper, E. Russell, A. McGill, A. Watson, J. Dearness, G. McLellan, E. Hutchison, R. Moodie, J. Linklater, C. Risbridger. Replacements: A. Milne, S. Paterson, A. Cromarty.
RAF Lossiemouth: N. Boyd, G. Williams, S. Gillan, R. Lawson, P. Devlin, B. Williams, D. Wright, L. Tallett, D. Cooper, G. Dunn, S. Lamport, S. Vunivalu, R. Rutherford, D. Bradshaw, S. Jones. Replacement: M. Graham.

Stuart Laundy - The Orcadian