Aberdeen Grammar have suffered a setback after full back Conor Lavery was ruled out for the rest of the season.
Lavery suffered a broken arm in last weekend’s 29-26 defeat by Falkirk and joins Calum Champion, who suffered a broken kneecap while playing for the police rugby team in December, in playing no further part in the campaign.
Head coach Ali O’Connor said: “Conor suffered the injury after his arm cracked off another player’s head. He tried to play on, which says a lot about his commitment.
“Unfortunately, he has had pins inserted in his arm which means he’ll miss the rest of the season.
“He has developed good lineout ball for the team recently and I think the rugby gods took offence at a full back taking the lineout.
“It’s a blow for us as we have always looked sharper when he is in the team but we’ll soldier on like we’ve had to do since losing Calum last month.”
The timing of Lavery’s absence could not have been worse, with Grammar hosting Premiership side Ayr in the National Cup third round tomorrow.
Ayr are joint leaders in the top flight and O’Connor knows it is imperative his players perform at Rubislaw.
He said: “Ayr are a good side and it is going to be a huge challenge for us but I’ve never gone into a game not wanting to win.
“There are three ways this game can go – we don’t raise our game and are beaten badly, we raise our game and give them a challenge, or we raise our game and they have an off-day which gives us a famous victory.
“We have to be brave and focus on executing what we have been doing. We’ll focus on our defence, be aggressive and try to dominate in contact situations.
“In the Falkirk game last week we were outstanding for 30 minutes but had a 10-minute period in the second half where we shot ourselves in the foot repeatedly.
“If we can produce our great half-hour for 80 minutes we’ll do OK.”
