Ardrossan Accies defeat Kilmarnock at Memorial Field

After a hard-fought victory away to Strathaven in their opening fixture last weekend, the Accies looked to continue their perfect start in the West Region League Division One at the Memorial Field on Saturday.

They got off to a poor start and conceded the first try of the match to go down 7-0 in the opening stages - but from there onwards put on a dazzling display of attacking rugby.

Duncan's side ran in a remarkable 11 tries of their own, with Jack Anderson converting seven - Kilmarnock were only able to offer one in reply, scoring no points in the second half - as they ran out 69-14 victors.

“We made hard work of it at the beginning," Andrew commented, "it wasn’t the best start but I suppose it switched us on.”

The boss, who was taking charge of only his second competitive game, gave a lot of credit to his side for their reaction to going behind. He was particularly pleased by the role played by the club's "leadership group".

Over half of the Accies starting XV were aged under 25 and the head coach knows that the experienced players they do have play a vital role - as much as him and his coaching team.

He said: “Experience is massive, we set up a core leadership group which is Lamo (Stuart Lamont) as captain who has been there all over the years at Ardrossan.

“We also have two of the senior boys who stuck through it when we were going through our downward spiral in Jamie (Thomson) and Ollie (Vollam) then Jack (Anderson) as well as a player who has played at a higher level.

“They can have these leadership moments in times like going down 7-0 almost from kick off. We talk about having positive reactions and these guys are the ones that need to ignite that reaction from the younger guys."

And Duncan felt the weekend's victory was a perfect example of this in action.

He continued: “Saturday there was a real positive reaction, it is a young team but it’s a young team that’s been through some hard times the last couple of years and I think that’s toughened them up a little bit.

“They can express themselves a bit more now that things are a bit more positive.

“I think that is helped by the leaders that have been through the turmoil previously or have been at different clubs and had different experiences.”

Duncan was also pleased with how the result could be used to show the progress of his side who narrowly avoided relegation from the league last season.

He told the Herald: “It was just another opportunity to lay down a marker, we know we’ve got a newer team and it’s got to perform like a new one and not think too much about what happened last year.

“We just need to take care of ourselves and then afterwards we can think about how important that was.

“It was an Ayrshire derby and a team that finished above us in the league last year and we’ve put a decent score on them.

“It’s two games in, it could be nothing in the long run, but it’s a good thing to look at.”

Another pleasing aspect was the free-scoring nature of his side with 11 tries ran in. Adam Monaghan, Jamie Thomson, Finaly Cairns, Ruairidh Anderson, Kyle Wood, Owen Phillips, Brian Hendy and Andy Buchanan (x3) crossed over, with the final try coming off the back of a maul.

While it was the back line who produced a majority of these scores, Duncan also handed credit to his forwards for giving them the platform for this.

He said: “The back line is really strong, there is a lot of speed and power across the whole back line, there’s a lot of different threats.

“It’s always the case that if the backs are scoring a lot of tries it’s got to come from somewhere.

“The pack in open play were really dynamic, really strong, and we kept getting quick ball."

And though their were some struggles at scrum time and from the line-out, the head coach was content that they eventually got a grip of this.

Duncan added: “The set piece we were actually under a lot of pressure, we were under pressure in the scrum a little bit but we stabilised it and got a good platform that we could build off.

“One of the highlights was getting a score off the back of a scrum just inside their half – if you’re ever scoring first phase attack then you are doing something well because that’s when defence is most organised.

“It’s nice to see that some of the set play attack is working.

“We did get a good platform at certain times to launch attacks from but from open play that’s where the forwards are really providing the platform for the backs to finish off and finish games off.”

Now, the Accies are preparing for one of the longest away journeys of the season against Annan next weekend.

Though Duncan sees it as an opportunity to further ascert themselves as a top side in the league.

“It’s never easy," he commented, "but the good teams find a way to perform and get a result and that’s what we’ll be aiming to do and keep the momentum going.”