Hillhead Take The Spoils

A very youthful Novos side lost to Hillhead Jordanhill by several tries to three but a lot of positives can be taken. Club debuts for Mickey Ferguson, Michael Searle and Luke Masters. In addition, senior debuts for Theo Mouille, Charlie Lawlor, Ben Rodgers, David Lawson and Joe Kapur.

The game was pretty even in the early exchanges with our lineout working beautifully with some great service from Tom Dias and Theo Mouille, Jeremy Hunt and Alex Cleminson bossing possession. Our visitors had the edge in most scrums and our pack will need to improve collective in this area in the next few weeks.

Around the park our opponents were more experienced and were good without the ball with intensity in their line speed. We could've done much better on the scoreboard as we dropped a pass for a sure try and then they got an intercept when we looked in. Enjoyed watching their 7 and 10 play who were a cut above anything else on the pitch - looked like they could play a higher level.

In attack, we looked pretty good with several line breaks but Hillhead were much better at finishing. Ben Jubb, Sam Bird and Harry Tankard led the way in busting holes with Michael Searle often putting the boys thru a hole.

It was great to see Sam Busby get 25-30 mins under his belt in his come back from knee surgery after a year out.

Sam Bird scored two great tries and looked a handful all afternoon from the wing. Our final score was a 75m effort from Harry Tankard who was mercurial all day and will cause opponents a lot of headaches this season.

Thank you to Hillhead Jordanhill for the game - great environment on the pitch and amazing in the bar afterwards. Joining in with the karaoke event before venturing into the toon where some of us bumped into you again. Hope you have a great season and perhaps we can head up to you next pre season for the decider given it's 1-1 between the clubs in recent matches.

Thank you to Paul Minto who I thought reffed really well - some great decisions, clear with his instructions and delivery of rulings on the new tackle height paramaters.

Next week we play Kirkcaldy who play a league higher than Saturday's opponents but we hope that we will be a little bit stronger as well with some players returning from hols etc.

Get down to training, get involved and get playing. supporting and/or volunteering.

Great first Saturday Nick Cotterill, our new head of men's rugby !