Watching Sport – Basketball Scores

26th March 2026

Three sides – Dumfries Saints, Preston Lodge and West of Scotland – are competing for the single promotion place from Division 3 of the Arnold Clark Men’s National League of Scottish club rugby. Prior to last Saturday’s fixtures, their respective points tallies were 55, 54 and 54 with the 4th placed team – Hillhead Jordanhill – some way back on 41 points. Dumfries had two matches to play, one fewer than their rivals.

As the weekend’s fixtures had pitted Dumfries against Preston Lodge, there was the opportunity for West of Scotland to overtake one of them – or, indeed, both in the unlikely event that they drew their match – were they to defeat Aberdeen Grammar Rugby in their home fixture at Burnbrae. I decided to make my first visit for a rugby union match on that ground since I saw West defeat Howe of Fife in what was then Division 3 of the Tennents National League in December 2021.

On a warm and sunny afternoon, it did not start well for West. After five minutes, a swift attack down the left wing resulted in a try for the visitors. However, two Aberdeen errors – one a dropped ball and the other an intercepted pass – quickly led to West tries within a couple of minutes of each other. Aberdeen then responded with a score under the posts. As all these tries were converted, it was 14-14 after 25 minutes. I suspected that this might be a high-scoring match.

But quite how high-scoring, I had not suspected. The final result was a 61-59 win for Aberdeen. If my notes are correct, the game had a total of 18 tries and 15 conversions with the lead changing hands 6 times between Aberdeen’s initial score and their final try under the posts with three minutes to go.

In the modern era, it is less uncommon for such “basketball” scores to be recorded in rugby union. Indeed, the recently completed Six Nations Championship included wins for Scotland by 50-40 over France and for France by 48-46 over England. (Thus, even the feted defence coach of France – Shaun Edwards – was obliged to watch his side concede a total of 96 points over two weekends). More relevantly for West’s current divisional interests, Preston Lodge edged out Dumfries Saints by 47 points to 43.

This is all a far cry from the (now distant) past, when the points on rugby union scoreboards would slowly advance – usually in multiples of three – as the teams slogged it out on mud-strewn pitches. 12 points to 9 would have been considered a high-scoring game.

In the case of the West-Aberdeen match, it might be thought that there were simply two poor defences. However, I don’t think this is an adequate explanation of the total of 120 points being registered in 80 minutes. Whilst some of tries were attributable to missed tackles or interceptions, I think that the scoreline was also reflective of some general developments in rugby union as a whole.

In particular, in recent years, the game has evolved in its attacking scope. There is much more thought now being given by coaches to the running lines within the back division and this has been allied to the honing of all players’ overloading skills in the tackle to maintain any attacking momentum. There is also much more variety in the types of kicks that are made (on the generally firmer pitches) within the opponents’ “red zone” (ouch). (I would argue that, to a significant extent, much of this reflects the passing down through the coaching hierarchy of some of the attacking skills brought into the union code from those grounded in rugby league). On Saturday, at Burnbrae, there was certainly no lack of commitment by either side in the tackle or in the scrap for the ball on the ground once the tackle had been made.

For Aberdeen, the captain Craig Shepherd led from the front with some strong running in the centre and was rewarded with a couple of touchdowns. The fly-half Dan McElderry added a lung-busting 75-yard interception try to his 8 conversions. For the home side, full-back Lewis Howick notched up 24 points from two tries and 7 conversions, whilst the winger Callum MacGugan benefited from some slick passing for his two tries. The hooker Gus Cameron also touched down twice, one of which was the result of a perfectly executed driving maul by the West pack from a short-range line-out.

At the final whistle of the two matches, Preston Lodge had taken over at the top of the table, their win – plus the try-scoring bonus point – taking them to 59 points with two games left to play. Both Dumfries and West registered two bonus points for try-scoring and the narrow margins of their defeats taking them to 57 and 56, respectively.

There is still much to play for, therefore, though the ball is clearly in Preston Lodge’s court, their remaining two fixtures being against the sides currently 8th (Strathmore) and 10th (Garnock) in the 10-team league.