Ayrshire 30-8 Stirling: Bulls secure bonus-point win

Ayrshire's Ross Thompson. Picture: Bruce White / SNS

County set the early pace, but, couldn’t score, and in their first visit to the County 22, Ayr went ahead via a Ross Thompson penalty. Four minutes later, Thompson, inset, drilled a penalty to a five-metre line-out and the Bulls pack mauled the ball over, with hooker Sam Kitchen scoring the try.

County opened their account in 25 minutes, Andrew Goudie goaling a penalty whenGordon Reid was pinged for dropping a scrum. This riled the Scotland prop and when another decision went against him, he was yellow carded for back chat.

County took advantage of his absence to cut the leeway to two points when Andrew Goudie broked down the narrow side and over from an advancing scrum.

They might even have led at the break, but the strong wind blew another Goudie penalty effort off course.

Sean Kennedy made his long-anticipated return to County colours at half-time, but it was Ayr, restored to full strength and with Reid channelling his frustrations properly, who scored next – Kitchen grabbing his second try, off another advancing maul.

The home side then went further ahead when skipper Blair Macpherson charged over, with Thompson converting, and then adding a 68th minute penalty.

County then forced Bulls to defend for a period, and the home side got their reward when they put together a series of concerted attacks. The hooter went with Bulls still attacking and they showed great discipline to create the room for Ollie Smith to grab the bonus-point try in about the 82nd minute.

Bulls’ coach Pete Murchie said: “We played slightly more rugby than last week, but, again the conditions were tough. We had a better second half, and showed good skills to get the fourth try.”

Ben Cairns of County said: “Déjà vu, we got into good positions but didn’t execute. I was happy at the break, but, we lost momentum in the second half.”