David Graham at Millbrae:
The Ayrshire Bulls pulled off a convincing win over Stirling County at Millbrae this afternoon with a 48-17 victory.
The home side scored 7 tries courtesy of; Matt Davidson, Yaree Fantini (x2), Blair Macpherson, Robert Beattie, Gavin Wilson and Elias Caven.
Tom Jordan and Christian Townsend both added conversions and penalties respectively.
A superb performance from the Bulls saw them secure a victory that will have no doubt tasted even sweeter after suffering defeat in the final seconds last time out against Stirling.
Double try scorer Yaree Fantini picked up the FOSROC Super6 Man of the Match Award to complete a superb afternoon at Millbrae.
(Yaree Fantini receiving his award from skipper Blair Macpherson)
Bulls coach Pat MacArthur was delighted with the bonus-point victory and said afterwards:
“The boys started with a lot of intensity and to be honest that set the tone for the game and credit to them.
Backing up performances is another thing you have to learn to do and we did well.”
On his side’s defensive efforts he said:
“The Super6 as you see in a lot of the games, they can be won by either team so at points you are going to have to defend really well.
We’ve done a huge amount of work and a big focus of our pre-season was our defensive setup and setting our stall out.
Credit to Stirling they had a spell of 12 or 13 minutes where they really put us under a lot of pressure and our boys stuck to our systems and kept up with their effort and managed to turn the ball over with a couple of good tries.”
Asked about other performances that stood out Pat said:
“I thought Tom Williams was outstanding today, his ball carrying and playmaking, he had a really outstanding game, then you look at your 10,12 and 13, (Tom Jordan, Tom Williams & Robert Beattie) they are all working well, then we can bring in Christian (Townsend) and our number 9’s are all interchangable, and a big part of where we are at is strength & depth.”
The Bulls next action is in one weeks’ time (Sun 19th September) when they travel to Heriot’s Rugby. The action kicks off at 13.30 and will be shown live on Free Sports with highlights available shortly after.