West League Update - 11th December 2018

First up, congratulations to Greenock Wanderers and Glasgow Uni Medics who won their respective finals in the West Regional Cup competitions.  Both the Shield and Bowl finals were played on the main pitch at Scotstoun with Uni Medics winning their contest against Birkmyre 31 -10 to lift the Bowl trophy, and Greenock Wanderers overcoming Dalziel 23 – 12 to lift the Shield trophy.

In the league, we had changes at the top of both West 1 and West 3, whilst in West 2 there was a “shock” result for one of the title challengers.

West 1 Update

We’ve lost count of the number of times the Club leading the West 1 title battle has changed, but this week, due to the Shield final, East Kilbride were the only one of the four contenders on league duty.  They had the tricky game against fifth-placed Annan, but they didn’t slip up with a 25-3 bonus point victory.  This puts them four points ahead of Garnock, but they have now played a game more, and nine points ahead of Glens and Greenock, who each have two games in hand on EK.

Read the full West 1 review here ...

West 2 Update

Some interesting developments in West 2 at the weekend.  The gap to leader Lenzie closed (though that was weather related as their game at Paisley was off due to a waterlogged pitch), Oban probably saw their title aspirations disappear with a home defeat, and we had another non-fulfilment from Millbrae.

Millbrae's non-fulfilment (and Police Scotlands in West 3) has raised some interesting debate, both online and off.  Both have now accumulated four non-fulfilments this season, which following the three strikes and you’re out rule, should see them drop out of the league.  But now that it’s come to it, several people think this would be counter-productive for rugby in the region as we need to be keeping as many teams playing as possible, whereas the counter-argument is, the Championship Committee are there to ensure the integrity of the competition, so it is not their job to keep Clubs playing social rugby. It’s an interesting conundrum.

On the playing front, the big news is that the Predictor Challenge got it wrong for both the Clubs who are chasing Lenzie in the title challenge.

Read the full West 2 review here ...

West 3 Update

With Glasgow Uni Medics playing in the West Bowl final on Saturday, WD had the chance to retake the lead in the Championship battle.  Fort William was the venue for 3rd v 2nd place contest, with Lochaber as the hosts.  We watched their game earlier in the season, which WD won 41-10, but Lochaber were in the game until they ran out of subs, so this looked like being a decent contest.

Wd won this one 32-12, keeping their 100% record – nine bonus-point wins from nine.  Both WD and the Uni Medics are scoring loads of points and conceding not many.  They’ve played the same number of games, but this result puts WD ahead by four points.  WD have got their noses ahead, but they’ve still to got each other home and away, so still loads to play for.

Read the full West 3 review here ...

Highlights Video: Hyndland v Shalwands

See also:

West Results - 8th December 2018
Predictor Update - 8th December 2018

Media Galleries:

Cumnock v Stewartry
Video: Irvine v Cambuslang - 1st half + 2nd half
Refcam: Irvine v Cambuslang
Wigtownshire v Uddingston
Clydebank v Bishopton
Video: Hyndland v Shawlands - Camera 1 + Camera 2