ANNAN 1ST XV v Lenzie 1st XV
WEST REGION DIVISION 1
7TH SEPTEMBER 2024
Match Report from: Gus Robertson
After last weeks heavy defeat to Dalziel the Annan players, coaches and supporters were hoping for a better performance on Saturday against Lenzie.
And a better performance was delivered but unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough to pick up any points against a Lenzie team who have now won 6 straight matches against Annan.
Matches between the teams have always been tight but Annan were a bit slow out of the blocks and were 14-0 down in just about as many minutes and the Annan faithful started to get a bit concerned that a big loss was on the cards.
But Annan managed to claw themselves back into the game when from a scrum close to the Lenzie try line, Ryan Hetherington with a number 8 pick up crashed over for his 2nd try of the season.
Unfortunately Lenzie scored a 3rd not long after but 2 tries from Aaron Carmichael on either side of half time put the match back to 19-15 and anyone’s game again.
The first Aaron try was a well worked moved in the corner which Aaron finished well beating a number players and the 2nd a chip and chase which Aaron managed to touchdown first over the whitewash.
But like earlier in the first half, Lenzie managed to hit back with 2 tries shortly after and it was 33-15 but still with about 25 mins to go.
Annan put the pressure back on and were unlucky not to get 2 further tries as twice they managed to crash over the try line but both times the ball was deemed to have been held up. Alas both did look like they had been grounded but hopefully over the season these things even themselves out!
Even with the 2 disallowed tries, Annan made the match hard for themselves and were always playing catch up rugby and Lenzie ended up deserved winners on the day.
Although defeated it was a big improved performance from last week with far better tacking and line speed but unfortunately too many times Annan threw the ball away instead of taking it into contact.
The players must now turn their attention to Saturday when they travel to face highflying East Kilbride, a team who thrashed Dalziel last Saturday!
So if the lads want to take anything from this match they need to be at 100% for the entire 80.
For the record, Annan’s Players of the of the Match were: Lex Stevenson (chosen by Annan) & Ryan Hetherington (chosen by Lenzie)
Starting X: 1 Ryan Glass 2 Callum Bell 3 Keiron Warrick (C) 4 James Morrison 5 Ollie Ferdinand 6 Stewart Livingstone 7 Wallace Alexander 8 Ryan Hetherington 9 Josh Whiteside 10 Fraser McMillan 11 James Kirby 12 Johnny Callaghan 13 Aitken Render 14 Lex Stevenson 15 Aaron Carmichael
Subs: 16 Sean Haren (used) 17 Callum Taylor (not used) 18 Murray Forbes (used) 19 Eben Le Vin (used) 20 Callum Smith (used) 21 Ben Latimer (used) 22 Alex Jones (not used)
MATCH PHOTOS
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
Individual highlights
FULL MATCH
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