Oban Lorne’s 1st XV and Ladies teams made the long trip to Moffat RFC on Saturday to take part in their first pre-season fixtures of the 2018/2019 season. The 1st XV had their first outing under the guidance of new head coach Andrew Johnston, while the Ladies had the consistency of Corrie Louw who will be hoping to build on what has been a very successful time for the team recently.
Both teams have been working hard in pre-season and have been eager to get going ahead of competitive fixtures now only a couple of weeks away. A youthful 1st XV squad departed Oban for the long trip looking forward to the first chance to put all the training of the last few weeks into practice.
Oban’s first fixture was against Walkerburn who play in the East Regional leagues. A strong performance from Oban saw them defeat the borders team by 24-0 with tries from Graham MacEachan, 2, Lorne MacLachlan and Radostin Maksimov. Oban were quick to the breakdown and recycled the ball well to run in four good tries. Next game up was old foes Stewartry Rugby club. Oban have had some great games against the Dumfriesshire team over the last few seasons in West Division 1. Again Oban showed good resilience in defence turning over a number of rucks and creating a couple of tries for Lorne MacLachlan and Stanley Lister. They only conceded one break away try to win the game 14-7.