Ellon and Mackie have an intense rivalry across the whole club, as two local teams who have always competed locally against each other, the rivalry has always been intensified at U15 for some reason.
Ellon U15 have always let this effect their game, until last weekend. As a squad, they worked on playing their style of rugby to the highest standard they could and ignoring everything else.
On a very cold morning with a stiff breeze blowing Ellon got to choose to play with the wind in the first half. Ellon kicked deep and worked well to retrieve the ball. Both teams battled hard as they fought to control the game. Both sets of forwards ran hard and set up ball for their backs to move. It was a close start to the game. Ellon twice had a chance to score early on, but knocked on twice 5ms from the line.
At the scrum both teams were also even, but well maintained with no penalties given. Ellon won their own scrum on the right, Kai Taylor came in from the wing, cutting between 9 and 10 to receive the ball and run into space at pace, taking on the full back and winning, scoring under the posts a great improvised try. Conversion by Ben Dickie made it 7 – 0.
Ellon made a deep break but were tackled just short, Mackie counter rucked, winning the ball and kicking to clear. They kicked 20m in a good clearance. Ellon took the line out with Lewis Milne throwing in to Dylan Kemp. Taking the ball well, Ellon pack set up a maul, which they had been working on, driving it to the line and scoring via Logan Vavangas. Conversion was missed by Ben Dickie from out wide.
Both teams continue a strong midfield game, but Ellon seemed to have the edge at the ruck and built from this.
Mackie managed to use their backs well and overlapped the Ellon team to score a converted try close to half time. 12 – 7.
Second half, Ellon received the ball well and immediately went in to counter attack mode. Running hard at Mackie and moving the ball. The weather got worse for a while, with driving rain along with the cold. Both sets of players did very well to keep playing such good rugby. Ellon defence were strong and tackled well, stopping Mackie from scoring and running hard back into the weather.
At 45 minutes Mackie were running from deep, when Archie Falconer intercepted the ball and kicked to try and get behind Mackie. A further kick from Adam Fowlie put a chase on between Adam and the Mackie Fullback to see who would reach the ball. Adam Fowlie reached it first and scored. Converted by Ben Dickie. 19 – 7.
Mackie came back strong and through the same strong midfield player they scored their second converted try with 8 minutes left. 19 – 14.
As the clock ran down, Ellon were on top and dominating the game. Mackie tried to clear their try line but under immense pressure from Ellon, they were pinned back and Ellon tackled the player with the ball behind the line and forced a scrum 5m to Ellon. From here Ellon went twice to the right to the side line and then cut back for Reese Melling to score on 59 minutes. Ben Dickie took his full allocated time on the conversion and although he missed it ran the clock out and the game ended with a win for Ellon 24 – 14.
Ellon now move to 2nd in the league, 1 point behind Gordonstoun and joint second with Perthshire, who they play this coming Saturday in Perth.