Highland Wildcats extend perfect record through Hamilton Palace tournament to clinch Scottish Conference and seal spot at Britbowl
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Highland Wildcats have qualified for this year’s Britbowl after securing the Scottish Championship.
Going into the third tournament of the season, the Wildcats were sitting on a perfect 6–0 record, looking unstoppable on their march to the national crown.
They racked up another three wins in style, beating the East Kilbride Pirates 46–6, the Edinburgh Knights 52–0 and the Hamilton Buccaneers 72–12 to seal their spot at the top of the standings.
“It went really well in the end,” Robbie Paulin said.
“Everything went to plan. I think we set the bar quite high for ourselves, so we always go into tournaments a little bit nervous, but we got one of the biggest wins we’ve ever had.
“I think mathematically it was the second win that got us the title, but we just went in to it thinking we had to get all three.
“We didn’t even mention it to the team after that second game. We decided to wait, because if you mention something like that momentum can sometimes wear off.
“You don’t really want celebrations slap bang in the middle of a tournament. When we won it in 2018, there were very big celebrations but that one was such a relief because it was a much tighter competition.
“This time we knew that as long as we played our best, we should be okay.”
Three perfect tournaments, and such one-sided scorelines, suggest that it was almost a foregone conclusion that the Wildcats would triumph going down to Hamilton on Saturday.
Paulin, though, was kept on his toes by tactical changes from one side in particular.
“After that first tournament, we realised that was what it would be,” Paulin explained.
“We felt that as long as we played our best, we should be fine.
“With East Kilbride, they’re always so good at adapting that you never really know with them.
“They adapted again and threw a lot of stuff at us this time that did throw us off at points.
“It never let them take over the game, but especially on defence they shuffled things around. They had five different defences go up against us and kept rotating around so that we could never get used to it.
“That’s quite unusual, I’ve never seen that before to be honest, but that’s what they’re really good at and it did throw us off at points.”
