In what was to be a very close game, Ellon started poorly in the first three minutes. With a low sun in their eyes, Ellon received the ball and instantly gave away an interception try for Mackie to score within 29 seconds! The conversion was followed up by another unconverted Mackie try with Ellon missing tackles (potentially due to the low sun). Ellon then decided to step up to the mark and attacked using scrum half Nathan Shirron, who scored wide for an unconverted try. With both teams playing a little scrappy, Ellon let themselves be drawn into the Mackie style of play and got caught out again with an interception try. Ross Greig ran hard with the ball for Ellon all morning, and was rewarded with a try on the wing after a number of fends. Ellon started to dominate the scrum with two against the head, from the second Nathan Shirron managed to score his second, which he converted. This left it at 20 -17 as in the last minute of the half Ellon received a penalty and Shirron kicked it over from 35 meters out.
The second half started scrappy and both team began to niggle at each other under the tension. It what clearly means a lot to both teams in this derby, things over spilled and the referee had a word with both captains. Mackie scored first in the second half with a score from a huge amount of pressure, and eventually breaking the Ellon defence on the line. However Ellon pushed to the Mackie 22 and from a Mackie lineout, the ball was tapped back by Mackie into the try zone and Sam Martin reacted first to drop onto the ball to score what was to be the winning points. With 5 minutes left Mackie attacked and Ellon defended, but a penalty to Ellon saw them kick the ball out for a 25-24 win to Ellon! That sealed the double over Mackie this weekend, at U18 and U16!