The Rampant Lions played Ealing Trailfinders Championship Development team on the 8th of March in a very competitive fixture with the Lions taking control of the first quarter to score a try through captain, Cameron Leigh.
Just after 20 minutes, Ealing’s blindside winger took an inside pass from the fly-half after a line-out and ran 45 metres to score untouched under the Scottish posts.
Ealing capitalised a few minutes later on a slow reacting defence to score another and followed with a switch play to score an unconverted try to lead 7-19 at half time.
Within five minutes, Scottish managed to convert pressure into points by scoring a lovely move finished off by 18-year-old winger Josh Smith.
Strong defence followed by both teams but Ealing managed to score a couple more tries to win 12-33.
The score often doesn’t reflect the game and the Rampant Lions can be encouraged by the performance on the day.
The Highlanders had a tricky fixture away to London Irish on the 15th of March and despite playing a very controlled and effective game, leading 17-10 at half time ended up losing the second half through defensive mistakes for Irish to win 52-17 in Shield 2.
However a week later, a strong Westcombe Park second team visited the Athletic Ground but a strong performance by the forwards in particular, saw the Highlanders win 29-24 with both sides scoring four tries.
The Claymores hosted MMT1 league leaders, Ruislip, on the 15th of March and had to get some points out of the encounter to stay in the hunt for a semi-final spot.
After losing heavily early in the season against Ruislip the Claymores faced a similar scenario with a depleted team.
However the Claymores have come a long way this season and put up a spirited performance and made Ruislip work very hard for their 24-37 win.
With the Claymores still in the hunt for the semi-final place, a must win game against HAC had to be played midweek on Tuesday the 18th of March at the Athletic Ground.
HAC, also needing a win to secure a semi-final place, arrived with a full and strong squad but London Scottish took the game away from them scoring 38 points in the first half to their 5.
Two tries in the second half was added to the six from the first half, with Toni Darling claiming a hat-trick on the night.
HAC scored two good tries of their own to bring the final score to 48-17 for Scottish giving themselves a good chance to qualify for the semi-finals.
HAC went on to win convincingly the following weekend, ending one league place higher than the Claymore to claim second spot with Scottishin 3rd, which meant a semi-final away for the Claymores to HAC on Saturday the 29th of March.
The Extra Bs played their final MMT2 game of the season against Bank of England on the 8th of March losing 48-36 in a highly entertaining game to finish off a season playing good rugby one division higher than the 2012/13 season.
