Last night saw two great sides come together to put on a fantastic display of sporting integrity with one prevailing 2 goals to 1 after a hard fought match. No, not that lot, the best sporting action last night was to be found at the Winterton rather than Wembley. Wednesday night shinty might not have the same familiar ring to it but try telling that to Lochside Rovers’ Lewis Buchanan who opened the scoring on the 2nd minute with a laser strike into the net. Following this Inveraray might have feared they were in for a Kaneing but when Lachie Wood blowed for half-time the score was still 1-0.  Lewis Buchanan’s Sterling performance continued after the interval as he netted again to put Lochside 2 up. It really did look like the points were coming home to Oban but Inveraray aren’t a team to go down without Mounting a challenge which was proven by Steven Cameron’s 77th minute goal to reduce the deficit to one. Now it was all about whether Lochside had the Stones to hold on. In the end they did and Lachie Shaw brought to an end a fantastic game of shinty – whether Gareth Evans will be attributing the victory to his tactical Kjaer and attention is yet to be seen.

We caught up with referee Lachie Wood after the game to find out what it was like to witness a fair contest between two great sides.

Lachie Wood:

“Inveraray v Lochside was a great advert for shinty, two young teams playing to a high standard and more importantly in a sporting manner, all the important skills in Shinty were on display, I made a point of thanking both teams for the way they played and for making it an enjoyable game”

Lenient or strict?

I would say that I am a fairly laid back ref, I like to let the game flow if possible, I tend to speak to the player's as the game goes on explaining my decisions and try to defuse any situation before it gets out of hand, though if needed I will book or send players off but like to think that's the last resort.

Summarise being back?

Really enjoying being back refereeing and equally pleased to see Shinty being played again!