Home win for Dunfermline S1 against Whitecraigs

Dunfermline S1 built on their opening victory against Biggar with a fine display of running rugby against our visitors for the opening home match of the season, Whitecraigs.
The match was played in beautiful late summer conditions, perfect for putting the ball through the hands. Dunfermline opened stongly and signalled their intent with an opening passing move which eventually resulted in Charlie threaten the line and neatly putting Mackenzie in for the first try. A good defensive display put pressure on Whitecraigs from the restart, Finlee and Jamie tackled strongly when the attack came down the wings, and Gregor and Aidan's tackling snuffed out any threat from rucks and down the middle of the park.
Andrew and Duncan kept the tempo high with some good decision making and excellent passing, and our ability to move the ball away from the contact areas and into space down the wings kept us on the front foot, with props Jack and Owen featuring well and displaying their handling skills in these moves. Euan kept the line-outs and scrums reliably delivering possession through some good hooking and decent throwing. Dunfermline turned this constant pressure into points, with further scores from Duncan, Kian and Finlee; captain-for-the-match Andrew kicking all but one of the conversions.
The second half stared with a few positional changes, amongst them: Kian and Gregor swapping no.8 and wing positions, Kialo coming on at Hooker (then switching to centre when Euan came back on), Brodie coming on at full back, Finlee and Mackenzie swapping 2nd row and wing, Aidan to prop to allow Owen to play at no. 8. Blair came on at 2nd row. Regardless of these changes, Dunfermline started the 2nd half in the same manner with a nice restart from Andrew gathered by Finlee, who released Aidan to run in unopposed.
Whitecraigs continued to show plenty of ambition in their play, and were starting to put phases together. This was the time for Dunfermline to show some focus and discipline, but instead they were suckered into giving away 30 yards by Whitecraigs keeping the pressure up with a series of quick tap penalties, the referee marching them back for not retreating 10m each time. This eventually resulted in a well deserved score for Whitecraigs.
For a while Dunfermline steadied the ship, some quick hands giving Gregor the ball at pace on the half way line, easily evading the scrambling defence and scoring under the posts. This was all too short lived and our lack of focus in defence was exposed once more, with Whitecraigs finishing the half on equal terms.
Final Score – Dunfermline 23 – 6 Whitecraigs.
A final 15 minute development period was played with a lot more positional changes. This was another roughly even period, but we were much more disjointed and less organised as a team. We had a few flashes of excellent attacking, but to their credit Whitecraigs were now finding the ever-widening chinks in our defence.
All in all a very encouraging performance, and one we can build on if we work hard to maintain our focus throughout the whole game.