Livingston v Linlithgow

Livingston v Linlithgow

Livingston took on local rivals Linlithgow at Almond Park on Saturday 25 September 2010. The hosts are undefeated in the league this season and hoped to avoid slipping on any possible banana-skins laid by Lithgy.

The teams looked evenly matched as they took the park. Both sides were up for this in the first derby encounter of the season. The opening 10 to 15 minutes were tight; however Livingston looked in the ascendancy as they were noticeably dominant in the scrum.

Livingston were playing a controlled, reasonably tight game as they looked to take on the visitors in the forwards. Linlithgow; however, looked to try and crash through Livi’s defensive three-quarter line. The home side’s tactics were working better as they pressed again and again on the Linlithgow defenders. The visitors kept trying to crack Livi’s resolute defence but no avail as the men in blue and white stood their ground.

Lithgy did get the first points on the board when their 10 knocked a penalty over to give the visitors three points.

The pressure was building on the visitors and it eventually told when Craig Bolan continued his rich vein of form, made the visitor’s defence look disjointed, slid through a Lithgy tackle and scored to the left of the posts. He dutifully converted his own try to send Livingston 7 – 3 into the lead.

Linlithgow were next to give away a penalty and Bolan stood up to slot the kick. 10 – 3 to the home team.

Some aimless kicking by the visitors and good counter-attacking by the home side led to a sustained period of pressure on Lithgy’s try line. This paid off when the visitors made a mistake on their line, failed to react and Jamie King grounded the ball for Livi’s second. Again Bolan added the conversion to take the score to 17 – 3.

Livingston conceded a penalty from the resulting kick-off and it was duly knocked over by the visitors. They then scored a try of their own, in what can only be described as a fluke along with a ricochet - the visitors centre crossed to score. 17 – 13 at half time.

Livingston were in a game and in the second half they began to dominate once again. The pack, it seemed, had completely demoralised their opposite numbers as Livi turned over the Linlithgow scrum time and time again. The backs were equally resolute and stout as Linlithgow never once threatened a line break from first phase ball.

Again the home side turned the screw. Another period of pressure lead to another score for Livingston as Jamie King crashed over to seal his brace. Bolan slotted the conversion once again. 24 – 13 to Livingston.

In an entertaining game Bolan added a drop-goal to complete a hat-trick of scores. Try, conversion and drop-goal for the Livi stalwart. Perhaps the only downside to the game was the fact that four players were yellow carded by the referee. Two players from Linlithgow and David Laird and Graham Steel for Livi spent 10 minutes in the ‘bin all of which seemed for fairly innocuous penalties.

Linlithgow were now beaten but if they could score they could possibly get a losing bonus point for being within 7 points of the winner.
As they threatened they made a break from the halfway. Their winger danced through a couple of tackles and it looked to whole world that he may have secured a bonus point for the visitors. However, Livingston second-row and man-of-the-match Stephen Hay somehow got to the winger, grabbed his shirt-tails and brought him down just shy of the line. Livingston replacement prop Andy Philp then cheekily turned the ball over to make sure that the visitors left with nothing.

Livingston won 27 – 13. All in all a good performance by the home side leaves them one point off the top of the league. Every player gave his all on Saturday but will still need to give a little more on Saturday coming.

Livingston travel to Lasswade next week to take on the league leaders. Like Livi Lasswade have won all of their home games, if Livingston can get a win there they could move to the top of National 1. They will hope to dominate and defend just as they did against Linlithgow but there’s no doubt that they will have to raise their game once more if they are to get anything out of Lasswade.

The Livingston team was;
1. Eddie Stuart
2. Ally Laird
3. Miki Piotr
4. Stephen Hay
5. David Laird
6. Jamie King
7. David Stone
8. Stevie Logan
9. Peter Beirne
10. Alasdair Scobie
11. Richard Cooper
12. Craig Bolan
13. Glen Mushet
14. Iain McDonald
15. Mark Douglas

Replacements were;
Graeme Steel, Andy Philp and Makryo Ularvuthu