U18s Boys Cup Final

In Wednesday’s U18 show-piece event, Merchiston Castle School played St Aloysius’ at BT Murrayfield with both sides bringing a substantial support.

Merchiston had taken an early lead through Douglas Tidy with Alexander Fraser successfully kicking the conversion.

Their lead was swiftly extended through Rory Stewart-Cox after captain Jamie Dobie had produced an impressive break and off-load, which was converted [14-0].

St Aloysius were not going down without a tussle and pulled themselves back into contention as Adam Scott converted Luca Alessandri’s try just before the break.

Half-Time Merchiston Castle School 14-7 St Aloyisus’ College

It was Merchiston who took the initiative as the second half got underway with George Kyriazi crashing over the line from short range.

Merchiston continued to target the wide areas, and the tactic proved to pay off with winger Dean Anderson going in to score, which was again converted by the boot of Fraser [26-7].

Dobie was at the heart of another great run and off-load, this time Marcus Cornelius was the recipient of the pass to dot down as Mechiston took control of the final.

Anderson ensured he would secure his second try of the match before a thumping conversion out wide sailed through the posts before the final whistle with the score 40-7.

FULL-TIME: Merchiston Castle School 40-7 St Aloysius’ College

At the conclusion of the game, Player of the Match was decided by Edinburgh players, Magnus Bradbury and Murray McCallum, they chose winning captain Jamie Dobie after a fantastic performance.

After the game Dobie said, “It’s tough to describe this feeling and you can see how much it means to the boys. We’ve worked a lot this season and we’ve all played a lot over the past five years at school and to come out with a performance in the second-half like that shows the hard work that we’ve been doing.”

“We struggled for a bit at the end of the first-half, but in the second-half we controlled it and played in the right areas, they couldn’t deal with that and we managed to rack up a lot of points.”

“For a lot of us this our final year of school so we’ve got a few games left but I’ll savour this. It’s a great moment.”

Merchiston Castle School: Rory Stewart-Cox; Dean Anderson, Matthew Currie, Owain Ashley, David Taylor; Alexander Fraser, Jamie Dobie (c); Ryven Ewing, Douglas Tidy, George Kyrianzi, Hector Skipworth, James Laing, William Harper, William Smith, Fin Stewart.

Replacements: Jack Dun, Stuart Robertson, Alex Geddes, Hamish Chapple, Oliver Flannigan, Marcus Cornelius, Archie Spencer.

St Aloysius’ College:Luca Bardelli; Dylan Subshimike, Adam Scott (c), Andrew Hughes, Roy Jackson; Andrew Lamb, John P Brawley; Lewis Patrick, Patrick Norris, Benedict Maclennan-Patton, Luca Alessandri, Seonaidh Morrison, Daniel Sharkey, Frankie Quail, Luke McCutcheon.

Replacements: Dean Hunter, Tino Mudoti, Ethan Darroch, Jamie McEntegart, Logan Coyle, Anthony Thompson, Dominic McCarron.