Alloa RFC 1st XV…………………………………118

Kinross RFC 1st XV………………………………14

ALLOA RFC produced one of their best displays of the season to beat Kinross 118-14 in front of another large Earlsfield crowd to clinch the BT Caledonia League Division 2 Midlands title last weekend.

The hosts welcomed back Skelton, Truesdale, Shaw and Pope to the starting line-up and the whole squad were determined to make up for the disappointment of losing their first league match of the season last weekend and were also looking to ensure that there would be no title slip ups.

The local side had a pre-match points target to reach and they absolutely demolished this with an astonishing 18 tries shared equally in each half.

On a perfect day for playing an open expansive style of rugby, the home side had a game plan to run the ball at every opportunity and this is exactly what they did.

Right from the kick off, they set the tempo for the rest of the match and never relented all afternoon.

Dale Foster opened the scoring after 5 minutes thanks to his fellow Forwards, who pounded the Kinross defence with a series of pick and drives and the Front Row man finished off the move by crashing over from short range leaving Lee Cairney with an easy conversion.

Kinross barely had time to regroup when once again they were lining up behind their own line facing another Cairney conversion. This time it was another Front Row man who got his name on the score sheet. The move itself started in the Alloa half when Martin MacKenzie took a quick tap penalty and literally seconds later the ball had passed between five players’ hands before the supporting, James Shaw finished off the move under the Kinross Posts.

Scrum Half, MacKenzie was successfully pulling the strings behind the dominant Alloa pack and the Alloa support did not have to wait long for try number 3 when he jinked his way through a number of would be tacklers for a great solo effort.

The all-important bonus point try was once again manufactured up front, when Ali Edwards bumped off a number of Kinross Tacklers before releasing a lovely offload to the supporting, Rab Truesdale who strolled over from 10 metres out and left another easy conversion for Lee Cairney.

Cairney, who has been outstanding all season from the boot, made no mistake with the extras and he went on to record 14 conversions as well as notching himself the next try.

When he received the ball out wide there looked nothing on as the Kinross defence were covering in numbers, but the young Winger managed to squirm his way out of a couple of tackles before stretching over the line.

Alan Keir, Andrew MacTaggart and a Matt Pope double completed the first half scoring and to their credit, Kinross never gave up and scored a nice try of their own just before half time. HT 61-7

If the visitors were hoping that Alloa would take their foot off the gas in the second half, then they would have been disappointed as they were forced to defend for most of the second half as the home side relentlessly ran in try after try.

Alan Keir doubled his personal tally shortly after the restart finishing off a nice handling move by the Backs, before Matt Pope benefitted from another quick tap penalty to notch his hat-trick and Keir quickly posted his own treble moments later.

It was all one way traffic at this point as the players seemed determined to make it up to the coaches and supporters for the disappointment of last week’s poor performance and some of the handling, offloads and support play was a treat to watch.

Kris Aitken was next on the score sheet when he ran in try number 14 from the half way line, and Lee Cairney added another two of his own before Daniel Murrell scored a nice try out wide following a set piece move from a scrum and finally, Philip Edwards completed his sides scoring when he bulldozed his way through three tackles to score under the posts.

Kinross once again scored just before the final whistle, but the day was all about the home side and the celebrations that followed were well deserved by everyone connected with the club as Skipper, Gary Taylor held aloft the League Trophy.