Home defeat for Orkney in rain-soaked league opener

RBS Caledonia League Division 1
Picky - Saturday 1st September, 2012
Orkney RFC 5, Strathmore 11

Two first half penalties and an unconverted try early in the second half handed Strathmore an away win against an Orkney side that failed to capitalise on lots of first-half possession and in the end could only reply with an unconverted try of their own in the second half.

Neither side could claim to have their strongest 15 starting the match for them, but Orkney’s biggest weakness was perhaps the absence of a recognised goal kicker, meaning that a few kickable penalties were put to touch for lineouts. This was an 80 minutes largely played out on the Pickaquoy outfield pitch in fairly heavy rain, and the conditions certainly didn’t help the players in their endeavours.

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It was just over 10 minutes into the match when Strathmore – who were on a chartered flying visit – slotted their first penalty, having had an earlier miss.  

Orkney had a fair bit of pressure in the period that followed, with some good handling, but the odd slip, combined with some solid defending from the visitors let Strathmore off the hook.

However, Orkney failed to convert territorial advantage into points and paid for it when Strathmore slotted a second penalty on the half hour to make it 6-0.

An Orkney lineout on the left saw Willie Thomson attempt to ferret his way past the Strathmore line himself and then a penalty to Orkney had Scott Rendall trying to batter through to the goal line. A second penalty Orkney’s way didn’t get them any nearer and the referee penalised the home side this time.
 
With half time reached without any further scoring, Orkney came out in the second half with the wind behind them and looked brighter, with Scott Rendall and Tom Croy having early breaks.
 
However, it was Strathmore who extended their lead after 45 minutes with a try which went unconverted to make it 11-0 and leave Orkney having to find two scores to get back into the match.

To compound matters Derek Robb was sin-binned soon after, leaving Orkney to fight back a man down.

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It was the returning Robb who scored their only points though, a hard-fought first try of the season touched down at full stretch for the forward to redeem himself and make it 11-5
 
Orkney had 20 minutes in which to find the points to bridge the gap, but though they pushed and prodded and had a few breaks with the ball, in the end Strathmore kept them on the back foot for long enough to mean that the clock became the enemy.
 
Although the home side battle hard towards the end and a couple of times were not far from the Strathmore line they couldn’t find the final decisive move, and had to settle for a losing bonus point.

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Match Report: Robert Leslie