Moray Rugby Club’s second XV battle back from ten-point half time deficit to defeat RAF Lossiemouth in Caledonia North Highlands and Islands Conference

Moray Rugby Club’s 2nd XV staged a comeback to defeat neighbours RAF Lossiemouth in a Caledonia North Division 2 fixture on Saturday.

This fixture always draws a crowd and the home spectators were not disappointed as Moray came away with their second win of the season. The Moray XV was a mixture of experienced players putting their boots on and youngsters moving up from the U18s.

In the first half Moray played up the slope and dominated possession for the first 15 minutes, pinning Lossie on their own 22 metres. However, it was against the run of play after 20 minutes, when the away team turned over the ball from a Moray ruck, spread it wide through hands to the speedster winger to outstrip the defence to score. The extra points were added by the Lossie full back with a well taken conversion.

For the rest of the first half the game ebbed and flowed with neither team converting chances.

Playing downhill in the second half is always a slight advantage, however Moray fell further behind when they were penalised on their 22 metres for not rolling away after the tackle. Again, the Lossie full back slotted home to take their points tally to 10.

As the game progressed Moray started to show signs of extra confidence. Putting pressure on the Lossie line, Moray’s man of the match David Clarke crashed over to half the deficit. The conversion wasn’t given by the referee although both linesman raised their flags.

Injuries weakened the Lossie pack and they had to go to uncontested scrums. This allowed Moray to move their stand in hooker into a freer role as Neil Alexander is a stand out backrow player. He made two or three storming runs before using his deceptive pace to burst through and score under the posts. The Moray 10, Tyla Turner slotted over the drop kick conversion to edge Moray 12-10 ahead.

An injury to the Moray scrumhalf, Callum Watson, meant Turner moved to 9 and Jonathan Haslam, returning after knee surgery move to 10. In the last 10 minutes Moray worked the ball to the right and from a quick ruck the ball moved to Haslam whose bullet miss pass found Moray full back Ryan Anderson, hitting the line at speed to beat three tackles and score under the posts. The extras were taken, and the home side emerged as 19-10 winners.

This as always was a keenly contested game with Moray now hoping to carry the momentum on to their next fixture, this weekend, away at Highland, 3pm KO in Inverness.