LOCH Lomond Rugby Club couldn’t build on last week’s win over Moffat in a hard fought tie with Bishopton at the Dillychip on Saturday.

After last week’s victory and inspired by the Rugby World Cup, Lomond enjoyed good numbers at training. This gave coach Dennsion an unprecedented choice of 28 players for the tie.

Despite the terrible conditions, the Dillychip was in excellent condition for the first home game of the season. Bishopton are always tough opposition and brought a good team with an especially dangerous full back and disruptive number eight.

It was the men from across the Clyde who struck first with a penalty. Lomond were quick to hit back, with disciplined driving from the forwards eventually winning a penalty on the opposition 22. Bailey converted to level the scores.

For most of the first half the tied score reflected this keenly contested arm wrestle of a match. However Bishopton struck before half-time. Their pacey full back managed to break down the wing and looked destined to score until Drew McGinty struck, literally, and preserved both the scoresheet and his reputation. However from a good field position Bishopton managed to score a converted try via their number eight, making it 3-10 at half-time.

Coach Dennison opted to take a strategic view in the second half, subbing himself and introducing Daly to the unique challenges of tight-head prop. Untidy play from both sides led to a number of scrums and patchy, loose play in the second period.

Bishopton succeeded in exploiting this with a missed tackle in the midfield ending in them touching down in the corner with a unconverted score.

Lomond hit back and took the game to Bishopton via the pack. The visitors knocked on the restart and couldn’t cope with the home set piece.

Indiscipline from Bishopton resulted in one of their players being yellow carded and a succession of penalties which allowed a smart tap and go to release Darren Nicholson who ran in an eye catching score to make it 8-15.

Lomond dominated the rest of the match but a series of handling errors prevented them from narrowing the score any further.

A tough game awaits Lomond with Uddingston visiting next week, however Dennison will be confident that Lomond will challenge providing they reduce the error count and show more composure in attack.