After an enjoyable night in the club house celebrating the turning on of the clubs’ new floodlights, a windy but otherwise beautiful day at West Lodge made for an enjoyable start to the season and an opportunity for some great rugby.

Our first game of the new season was against Hamilton and up until the break the game was fairly even. In the second half our tackling seemed to let us down, something we can work on in training.

In our second fixture of the day against a rejuvenated and strengthened East Kilbride team, the P7’s started off with an early display of strong direct running, when Odran split the opposition, breaking numerous tackles to score. Thereafter the opposition endured an onslaught of tries from Matthew and Sandy Reid. The brothers again showed off their flair for open-running rugby by continually collecting to the oppositions kick off’s near to their try line, before running the length of the pitch and scoring, either individually or by linking well between one another.

The tone of the game was set at that point and it’s safe to say that the team never looked back, putting in a convincing winning performance, with tries form all positions and areas of the pitch.

The strength of the squad shone through, with seamless interchanges of personnel throughout the game. Craig and Alberto (Abo) again displayed their great leadership skills, marshalling the team around the park and leading from the front with their direct ball carrying and effective rucking.

Samuel continued to break tackles with his slight off foot and showed that his rugby brain is developing well. Midway into the second half, whilst awaiting a scrum near to the opposition try line, Samuel was seen to whisper something into the ear of Will. On the ball leaving the scrum Samuel and Will linked together and executed Samuel’s plan to perfection. Samuels scissors move successfully drew the back line in, freeing him to run in a superbly executed try.

Despite the manner in which the game was played the Whitecraigs tackle count remained relatively high and yet again every player showed up in that department. Of note, Charlie and Zachary were seen to put in a number of brave and technically well executed tackles.

As always, it’s great to welcome newcomers to the team. A warm welcome therefore goes out to Alex, Yuvraj, Rory B and their families.

All in all, it was a commanding performance with a lot of really good passages of play. Keep it going “The Mighty”!