The Rams made the long road trip north on Sunday with a very understrength squad to take on Scotland’s finest, the East Kilbride Pirates. The scoreline did not reflect the commitment and effort which the Yorkshire players had, but they did travel back with their pride intact and heads held high. 

The Rams kicked the game off with the home side taking early advantage and made good progress on their first drive of the day. Yorkshire’s defence dug in though and forced the punt which was downed at the visitor’s five yard line. The Pirate’s luck was with them as the first attempted pass fron Simon Dewdney was batted into the hands of Gary Chalmers in the endzone to give East Kilbride the six points after just two minutes. The Rams showed promise after receiving the kick off and made good ground helped by a well taken pass by Lee Taylor from Dewdney, Taylor was rewarded with a well earned MVP for offence, but Yorkshire faltered well inside opposition territory and had to punt. Jon Sutherland scored his team’s second touchdown when he literally bounced off defenders to go 57 yards to paydirt. Ram’s Rich Handby gathered the kick off and rumbled forwards for yardage with many Pirates on his back before finally collapsing near the halfway marker. Bad luck reared it’s head again for Yorkshire when Dewdney’s first pass was picked off by Steven Wilson to regain the ball for the home side. Stuart Jones made a superb open field tackle to stop a certain TD run by Sutherland on the Pirates first play but the reprieve was short lived. The third EK touchdown came on a 15 yard pass from Gary McNey to David Mooney and with McNey’s kick splitting the posts the score read 19 – 0. Yorkshire’s offence proved again ineffective against the powerful Pirate’s defence and had to punt again. Another solo tackle on what would have been a touchdown run, this time by new signing Neil Stubbs who played a variety of positions and was awarded the defensive MVP for a superb game, put back the scoring for a while. The pressure remained though and McNey’s 23 yard pass to Sutherland gained the six , the score increased to 26 – 0 when McNey booted the ball over the bar. 

Yorkshire had to punt again on their first drive of the second quarter and the Pirates got their fifth TD when Jordan Falconer returned the pigskin 83 yards for the score. The Rams were unlucky not to pull back a few points when a pass from Dewdney was well taken on the run by another new signing, Matt Excell, who went for a 20 yard gain and with an open field in front jumped over a fallen defender who just caught his foot to bring him down. With EK regaining possession, Excell showed he was just as good on the other side of the ball when he chased down Willie Brown who thought he had the end zone in his sites, but just as the Rams thought they had taken some pressure off McNey lobbed the ball to Sutherland for him to score his third TD of the game. Excell was again thwarted of a score as he returned the kick off  as he  was unluckily caught by the back of his loose shirt. Pirate’s penalties combined with an excellent catch by Paul Calvert started to finally put some pressure on the home team inside the last couple of minutes, but after not converting the fourth down East Kilbride once more took over the ball deep in their own territory. As the end of the half approached Brown got the TD he had been hunting when he raced down the right side 53 yards, Andrew Mackintosh barged through for the two pointer. Yorkshire lost the ball on a fumble but after more good tackles by Stubbs and Excell the Rams thought that the scoring was finished for a while. McNey had other plans though as he lofted a 25 yards pass for Mooney to gather in with just one second on the clock. McNey ran the ball in to finish the half at 54 – 0. 

The second half started much the same as the first. Steven Wilson intercepted the pass from Dewdney and returned the ball 45 yards for the score to make it 60 – 0. Just a couple of minutes later the Pirates added another TD when Sutherland jinked his way through tackles to go 48 yards for his fourth score. John Adams barrelled his way through for the two. Half way through the quarter, and after making some good yardage, but with many players tiring through playing both ways and in different positions Yorkshire had to punt once more. Jay Alexander saw a space in which he thought he could gain a first down and went for it instead of kicking, but paid the price after being brought down heavily just inches short of the mark. Another good run by that man Sutherland got his side deep into the Ram’s half to help set up a score, McNey took advantage and ploughed his way through from 8yards to add to the points. Brown went in for the two pointer to finish the period 76 points up.