Buccaneers touch rugby had a novel encounter in recent times with a friendly fixture against the visiting Dhahran Scorpions touch team from Saudi Arabia.
The Scorpions were in Ireland to celebrate the wedding of two of their players and this friendly fixture formed part of the post-wedding festivities.
Despite the unpromising weather forecast, Storm Kathleen behaved herself and there were almost perfect conditions on the TUS astro pitch for a game of touch.
Buccs raced into a 3-0 lead early on with scores from Paul Gavin, Gustavs Mitenbergs and Alex Connor before the Scorpions struck back with a nice wraparound move. Buccs continued to take the game to the Scorpions and built up a 7-2 lead at half-time with further tries from Paul, Nigel So, Kevin Brady Barry and Colm McNally.
The Scorpions came right back into it in the second half with four more scores and Buccs responded with 6 of their own from Cian Copelin (3 ), Dion Chitanda, Paul and Gustavs. 13-6 to Buccs was the final score at the end of 40 minutes of very enjoyable touch.
However it didn’t finish there as the Scorpions were keen to play for a fifth quarter so the game rolled on. Buccs added five more scores from Cian (2 ), Alex, Paul and Colm while the Scorpions responded with two further tries.
Thanks to Andy and all the Scorpions for giving us a very enjoyable afternoon of touch rugby and congratulations from all at Buccs to the happy couple Martina and Mark.
Buccaneers - Paul Gavin, Aoife Purtill, Ben Porter, Niamh Purtill, Nigel So, Molly Copelin, Cian Copelin, Dion Chitanda, Feidhlim Byrne, Gustavs Mitenbergs, Colm McNally, Kevin Brady Barry, Alex Connor, Anthony Quinn, Rory Silke.
