Rock, paper, winners – Rockfield win MacKay Cup thriller
The Mackay Cup took centre stage ahead of the W M Donald MacTavish Final at Bught Park on 13th June and a strong crowd gathered to watch the conclusion of the primary school competition with Rockfield and Bun-sgoil Ghàidhlig Phort Rìgh facing off for the second year in a row.
While the skies were grey, the rain thankfully stayed dormant as Bart Bukowski got the game underway. It certainly did not take long for the goalscoring action to get underway as Rockfield raced into an early lead, a great long ball from Arthur Handley landing at the feet of Ollie Duffy, the BSGP defence thought they had done enough to clear but he put in a clever side-on block and pulled the ball away from the backs, pushing the ball out wide and firing across the keeper into the far corner of the net.
Seven minutes later and BSGP would bite back with a goal of their own, Cailean Murchison picking up a short clearance, looking up and firing beyond the Rockfield goalkeeper from distance to get the holder’s level. Rockfield re-established their lead midway through the half though, Handley playing a ball into the centre of the park from defence which was nicely pushed on first time by Callum Crichton, Duffy was first to the ball at Full-Forward and used his pace to beat his marker taking it out to the right flank again before finishing, this time at the near post. The crowd at Bught park knew at this stage that they were being treated to a game full of goals, but few expected another to come within twenty seconds. Handley won the throw up and ran 20-yards with the ball before finding Duffy, again while it looked as though he may have lost the ball, he emerged with it once more and invited the keeper to come out to close him down before pushing it beyond him to secure his hat-trick and give Rockfield a commanding lead.
With half-time on the horizon, Rockfield kept pushing and were rewarded for their endeavours as Jacob Askew’s strike from the left wing managed to find the back of the net despite the best efforts of Seonaidh Nicolson who had made a wonder save minutes earlier.
Three goals behind going into the second half and you could have forgiven BSGP for being forlorn about their chances, but credit to the youngsters, they came out with their heads held high and battled hard getting their reward as a long ball from Alasdair Tindall was pounced upon by Ross MacDonald who pushed the ball into the back of the net from close range. Six minutes later, the lead was reduced to just one, B5 shrugging off a robust challenge before playing Murchison through, he pushed the ball wide to the right and struck back across the goalkeeper into the bottom corner.
Despite the narrowing of the scoreline, Rockfield continued to push and were denied by some good defensive work; BSGP always carrying a threat on the counter. However, there were to be no more goals in the game meaning that Rockfield were crowned MacKay Cup champions after a great match, to top it all off, their Captain Arthur Handley was awarded the Anne Cameron Player of the Match Award.
