U14 played up on the big First XV pitch, which was always going to make the game hard as they only had 14 players. Deeside Wanderers came with 18 players and decided to play with 15, rather than match Ellon’s 14. Ellon also had to reverse their shirts due to a colour clash. Ellon took an early knock to the influential Finlay Ritchie, make it 13 v 15. Ellon took this to heart a little too much and let 5 tries and 3 conversions in the first third of 20 minutes. After a stern talking to at the break the team came back out strong. Rucking well and tackling well. However the team went down to 12 when Arran Whitaker took a knock. 12 v 15 is incredibly hard, and great credit to Ellon who kept up the scrum when they could have gone uncontested, and kept up a strong defence. The second third Deeside Wanderers only scored 3 tries and 2 conversions. Arran came back on at the end of this period.
The final third, mainly belonged to Ellon! They threw caution to the wind and played strong running ruby. Working with the forwards, with Ben Dickie and Adam Fowlie joining them, the team drove hard up the field. Dylan Kemp carried the ball incredible well and his reward was to score first. Ben Dickie, playing his first game at scrum half, broke well and reached for the line to score. Both conversions missed. Arran then broke away on the wing, but a high cover tackle stopped him and the knock on the knee took him off again. Deeside scored some late tries, but the Ellon tackling was excellent for low numbers. Final score was 6 – 36 to Deeside Wanderers.

Awards: Best Back to Ben Dickie, Best Forward to Dylan Kemp and the Best Rugby Attitude to Arran Whitaker.

Up next is Gordonstoun away on Saturday 11:00.