Shawlands Academy took the honours in a terrific game against St Paul's High School with both sides putting together some searing runs, thunderous tackles and outrageous offloads.

The first period saw Shawlands take advantage of their extra rugby experience and understanding to defuse the St Pauls attack, overturn the ball and score a number of well worked tries, yet it was clear that St Paul's have some serious talent in their team and they were here to play, trying numerous times to unlock the Shawlands defence with just the final pass missing from some very fine individual play.

Both teams worked together in a short break to consider what they'd learned in the first session and bring about a better understanding of the objectives. It's a mark of the talent in the St Paul's team that with just the opportunity to regroup enough to see a step improvement in the team play, setting Shawlands back on their heels with 2 very fine scores right from the start of the session.

Just as the game appeared to be swinging St Paul's way the Shawlands boys returned to what they had been doing best in the first session, with the offloading game once again serving them well, to run in some tries of their own and claim victory in a much closer 2nd session.

At this level, it's clear that rugby experience is a huge advantage and Shawlands benefitted from that, but with both teams blessed with boys well equipped for the rigours of rugby and some very fine runners, it won't be long before St Paul's will be looking to overturn this result.

Players from both teams played the game in excellent spirit and will find themselves a warm welcome down at Dumbreck, as Cartha seek to take advantage of this plethora of local talent to establish an u13 club team.