Culblean Challenge - Quarter Final

Despite the slow start to competitive rugby in 2025 match day 14 came around fast and brought the first knock out game of the year.
And what a tie to start with - Highland at home, a team which he were due a big performance against.
So it was great to have the sun out to enjoy the hotly anticipated game.

From start to finish the squad played as one with great intensity and team work, the smiles on their faces at the end showed how together they are as a squad. They helped each other cover the field in defence and let the ball do the work in attack allowing getting everyone involved.
The 9, 10 partnerships and the two line attack we have been working on played a big part in this to give options to play out the back or get the ball wide. This takes whole team communication and understanding, two great facets the squad showed in the match.
As coaches it is great to see the fruits of a long season coming to bare when we need it most.

Their play showed itself on the score board getting up to 19-0 in the first 10mins. Through out the game Noah and Euan R our ever dependable attack runners got a hat trick each, but with 10 tries in total it was great to see the forward pack getting in on the action with Archie and Riley also getting on the score sheet. This was complimented by some excellent kicking that was shared between Hamish and Stewart. Not to be out done Euan F and Millar also go it on the action getting a try a piece. All the tries were well deserved and only possible due to the effort of the whole team - they earned them together.

The performance was played with physicality on the edge of the rules which was great to see. On the flip side this produced a few too many penalties for the referee's liking and we ended up getting a yellow card near the end of the first half. In usual circumstances the player on the receiving end of the card has to go off for 10mins and is replaced by another squad member, with the offending player allowed to come back on the pitch after the 10mins is over. However, in this case given the 1/2 time score was 38-7 we decided to play on with 14. Despite being a man down we ended the period 2 tries to 1 up another moment in the game that showed the resilience of the group.

When you play against a team that on paper was due to be big challenge but turned in a 64-21 win it would be harsh to pick up aspects of the game that should have been better. But as a group we continually want to improve to put our best rugby out on the pitch. So there will be learnings to take from the game into our semi-final match, Moray Away which, as we all know will be a step change in skill and physicality from what we have faced in recent weeks.

Just to re-iterate well done to the whole squad you got the result your performance deserved.

And Finally, as always thanks again to the side line support we don't take it for granted and look forward to seeing you all at Moray this weekend.