McLaren High School 0 Braidhurst High School 9
Braidhurst began their quest for a third successive Scottish Shield with a potentially tricky away tie to McLaren High School, Callander. Nestled in the heart of the Trossachs the boys took to arguably one the more picturesque footballing fields. However sightseeing was the last thing on their mind. Despite missing two of their regular players, Jake Hastie and Dylan Falconer, Braidhurst were determined to stamp their authority on the game. The pitch was in remarkably good condition, despite the amount of rain that had fallen, and the boys quickly settled into their normal passing game. The absence of Jake Hastie saw Rico Quitongo move out of his central defence role into central midfield where he began to assert himself. A lovely pass from Rico to Nick Mullen saw him open the scoring with what would turn out to be the goal of the game as he rifled a shot from outside of the box into the top right hand corner, leaving the keeper with no chance. The match then became the Ryan Watt show as he went on to score the next three goals. A major part in these goals came from the sterling work of Jordan Duncan on the right hand side of the pitch. By this point in the game he was terrorising the McLaren defenders.
Half-time McLaren 0 Braidhurst 4
The second half saw Braidhurst ring the changes as Oliver McDonald and Deryn Lang came on for Andrew McNulty and Ryan Watt respectively. The biggest surprise was to see Tony Sharkey make his debut as a centre forward as he replaced Darren Wilson, Tony normally plays in goal for the team.
All three players did well in their positions as the scoring continued when Thomas Smart saw his cross being turned into the net by one of the McLaren defenders. Goals then followed from the ever excellent Jordan Duncan and Oliver McDonald before Rico Quitongo finally helped himself to the goal he had been searching for the whole game. All in all this was an excellent professional performance from the under 15s, seeing them move into the next round of the Scottish Shield where they await the news of who their opponents will be.
