Miller steps up into rugby captain role

Rugby

HAVING been denied promotion last season by a league restructuring, Langholm RFC are very keen to get on with East league business.
It kicks off this Saturday with an away fixture at North Berwick.
The team trained well over the summer, played at Hawick sevens in early August and have taken part in two warm-up matches in the past three weeks.
The squad is ready to build on the success of the previous two seasons which have seen a lot of good victories both home and away.
Coach Craig Hislop has a good mixture of well-drilled young players who have moved up from the U18s, experienced senior players and some new faces to bolster the squad.
Lewis Miller will be captain this season and looks forward to some good performances.
Over the course of the summer a good deal of work has been done at the club. Both pitches at Milntown have had work carried out to further improve drainage and new posts have been fitted to the training pitch.
There is some work to be completed on roof repairs to the clubrooms over the women’s toilets and the kitchen. This will complete the refurbishment of the grandstand and the clubroom roofs which started in 2015.
The first home match is against Corstorphine RFC on September 14. Kick-off is at 3pm.
Hawick Linden 26 Langholm RFC 7
Langholm played a friendly pre-season match against Hawick Linden at Volunteer Park last Saturday.
Superior
Linden won the encounter but the 26-7 scoreline did not reflect the match in which Langholm dominated play for long periods and were superior in the scrum and in their good attacking running rugby.
With a Steven Nicol try, converted by Smith, tying the scores 7 all at half time, it was still anybody’s match as the second half started.
Linden scored to take a 12-7 lead but Langholm were in the driving seat.
New centre Joe Kirkcup controlled the back line and the big forwards were in charge up front, attacking the Linden line but the home defence held firmly.
A loose ball kicked through by Linden was not cleanly gathered by Langholm and it was picked up by the Linden full back who ran in for a soft score.
With the conversion, the score was 19-7.
Langholm made inroads but a loose pass made along the back line was intercepted and another converted try resulted to make the score 26-7.
Langholm had a mountain to climb and, although they attacked right to the whistle, they were unable to add to their score.
They should take a lot from this match. It was a good team performance which, although a bit rusty, showed some good potential.
There were some good individual performances which bodes well for the club.
Squad: J Ratcliffe, R Martin, C W Tait, T Hope, F Mitchell, E Patterson, A Tyler, E Turner, C Henderson, S Nicol, J Pool, N Smith, J Kirkup, C Bell, P Wilkes, C Helling, L Miller , C Park, C Gray.