Rugby men crash out of cup

Livingston 0 — Hamilton 40

LIVINGSTON Rugby Club suffered a home hammering this week in the fifth round of the cup.

Premier Two side Hamilton visited Almond Park and battered their hosts into submission by a massive 40-point margin.

From the outset Hamilton were well in control and crossed for their first try after only five minutes.

The visitors were showing their class and higher league status as they scored again.

Livingston were showing a lot of fight but were out-classed by their opponents.

The Almond Park side were getting a reasonable amount of ball but what they did get was scrappy.

The forwards were struggling in the scrum and the Livingston backs were failing to make line breaks.

Hamilton kept pushing and, to be fair to the home side, were repelled for most of the first half with Livingston defending well.

But Livingston buckled under pressure during the first half and went in at half-time trailing by 25 points to nil.

The second half followed the same pattern with Livingston struggling to deal with the bigger Hamilton pack and their elusive back line.

Hamilton maintained their pressure and Livingston were looking tired.

The visitors were using all of their substitutes but with Livi in the grip of a minor injury crisis were unable to bring on all their subs.

Davy Laird replaced Colin Powley with about 30 minutes remaining but there was not much the sub number 8 could do behind retreating scrums.

Hamilton scored several tries in the last minutes of the game to take the final score to 0 - 40 to the visitors.

Livingston are back to league business this weekend when they play Ellon at noon on Saturday.

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