Poor away run continues for West of Scotland

The Milngavie side’s poor away form continued for large parts of the match.

They were driven back in the scrums and being somewhat dysfunctional in the line-out made any attack by the West backs difficult.

Early on Preston Lodge were vigorous in attack and this was rewarded when a break through the middle saw an early try, duly converted.

This was shortly thereafter added to with a penalty from the 22 by the home scrum half.

West struck back with their own penalty and then an excellent break by captain Jamie McAulay with a final pass to lock Alan Bodel which saw Alan touch down out wide.

The conversion missed but West were in contention at 10–8. Unfortunately West scrum-half Harry Brewster was injured in the exchange and some rearrangement of the team was forced.

The remainder of the half was fairly scrappy until Preston Lodge gained a 5m scrum and their No8 broke off to score, conversion successful.

West did manage to keep in touch when a good penalty Pete Burns brought the half time score to 17–11.

After the interval a series of forward drives on the West line eventually led to another converted try.

Shortly after a break from a ruck on halfway line by the home no 8 Alan Whitingham saw him touch down under the post. With that duly converted the score was now 31–11 and West had a mountain to climb.

To give West their due they made every effort to climb that mountain.

Firstly a good passing move saw West full-back Mark Davis touch down out wide, Burns missing the difficult conversion.

With minutes remaining another break by the West backs gave centre Blair Smith a clear run to the line, conversion again missed.

West tried everything to gain the fourth and bonus point try but ran out of time.

This week West are away to Lasswade.