CELEBRATE!! 2s win their league with thumping home win

The big rugby news at the weekend was not the outcome of the European Champions Cup quarter finals. No! It was EK 2nd XV's thumping victory over Hillhead-Jordanhill 2As at the Torrance House Arena. I met Will Underwood, Sky TV's expert rugby analyst after the low priority Saracens v Warriors quarter final at Allianz Park and the 2s result was all Will wanted to talk about. And no wonder.

The 2s have won their league with three matches to spare which will allow them to relax and express themselves to the full (or the fool, in some cases) in the remaining matches. It is a great outcome, following the U18s win in the West Regional Shield the week before, so not a bad little season for two of the three senior teams.

And who gets the credit? Obviously the players, but a good deal of the credit is due to Bruce Beggans, who has consistently and doggedly stuck to the task of finding and organising sufficient bodies for the 2s whatever the range of excuses submitted by some of his team for not being available.

It's a pretty miserable task on a Friday night/Saturday morning so well done Bruce. Take a bow. And the rest of you as well. By all accounts, you celebrated long and hard on Saturday night. Great stuff. Now, what do we need to do to try to get some of you to come training during the week?

As is often the case, I have no real detail about how the match went. The 2s scored a mere 12 tries BUT only six miserly conversions. I hope Patrick (once a kicker) Quigg and young Roddy Beaton are hanging their heads in shame. They shared three successful conversions each. Please don't try and tell us it was a horrible, wet day. Have you ever heard Owen Farrell complain about the weather?

Tries came in various formats:

• 2 short range efforts from Calum Aitken;
• 2 pick and go break aways from Ben (Austin) Walters;
• 2, including the try of the day, by svelte Eddie Beaton. His best try was a great team effort which concluded with Eddie, normally a prop, standing up the opposition winger and then burning him round the outside to score in the corner;
• Aidan Stott scored after fine interchange between himself and Roddy Beaton, amongst other that took play the length of the field;
• Roddy Beaton scored a carbon copy of Aidan's try (copy cat!);
• Duk, aka Lazarus, came on a half time and slalomed through the Hillhead defence from outside the 22. Time to score: 25 minutes. Slow motion live;
• Alex Sniffer Irvine scored after pouncing on some scrappy play by Hillhead
• Ross (where is my mum with that camera?) Campbell received a pass and fell over the line after a fine team effort of sustained pressure (with photo to prove it);
• Dylan Brodie slid over at the end for a try.

Once again Patrick Quigg was quoted as saying that he almost scored a try. Ha - he also used to be a kicker of some repute, albeit Bruce (I make up excuses) Beggans reported that the weather was a tad inclement.

And, by all accounts, there was a good deal of mirth when young Aidan Stott, an aspiring scrum half, was taken off to be replaced by his old dad, Fraser, also apparently still an aspiring scrum half. Must have been an interesting conversation afterwards who had the best pass. They may have been sensible and agreed that this belonged to mum/wife Angela.

So no individual man of the match - we will give the award to the whole team.

Photographs: Aileen Campbell was covering the match as ever and has provided the usual 100 photographs of her son Ross. Many thanks Aileen for turning up ever week. One small tip for next year - get John to check with the ref what the score was at the end of the match as that is two weeks in a row that he has given you an ever so slightly incorrect final score!!

We really do appreciate your photos. You are so much better at photographing your son than anyone else. So pushing our luck now, how about a few match reports next year as well - multi tasking?! Or a role for John? You can see her brilliant album here

Next week: if they have stopped celebrating the league championship, the 2s play Dalziel 3s AWAY on Saturday 8 April with a 3pm kick off. All support welcome.