Kingussie are the new holders of the Artemis Macaulay Cup after a narrow 3-2 win over Oban Camanachd at a wet and windy Mossfield Park on Saturday.

The result brings the Kingussie club’s total of Macaulay Cup wins to 24 –twice as many as any other side in the sport – but that simple statistic hides the fact that the last time Kings lifted this trophy it was back in 2010 and the majority of the present squad were still in primary school .

For Kingussie coach John Gibson the joy of victory was mixed with relief. “I don’t know about 2010 but that 90 minutes certainly felt like a long time – particularly the last five,” he said. “The one-goal lead meant we had a nervous final few minutes. But this is a young team and there is more to come from them. We still have a slight edge over Newtonmore in the league with seven games to go so we’ll see where the rest of the season takes us.”

Despite the final result, it was Oban that opened the match with a more purposeful attitude. Playing with the wind at their backs they penned Kingussie in and might have taken an early lead but full-centre Lorne Dickie’s third-minute strike was well saved by the hand of Kings keeper Rory McGregor.

The Oban midfield maintained their grip and before long McGregor was again in action with his hand to deal with an attempt from distance by Scott Macmillan.

Kingussie did have forays forward, however, and on one of these occasions – somewhat against the run of play – full-forward Savio Genini picked up a pass forward from James Falconer and twisted to fire the ball past Oban keeper Cammy Sutherland for the opener. As play swung back and forth, Oban’s Daniel Cameron might have equalised but his strike flew high over the bar while Genini, who was giving full-back Daniel Madej a difficult time had his attempt saved by Sutherland.

Oban equalised in the 23rd minute through a long drive from wing-centre Scott Macmillan, catching out McGregor, who did not seem to expect the strike to come through to him.

A similar situation four minutes later saw Oban go 2-1 up, this time the shot coming from a more central position with Daniel Cameron scorer.

One might have expected Oban to push on and close out the game given that they had home advantage and the backing of a big local crowd, but that is not quite what happened.

To be fair to the West Highland side, their top scorer, Andrew MacCuish, had two chances to put them 3-1 ahead but he was twice denied by McGregor. The first occasion came just after the restart; the second more cruelly in the 64th minute when, after McGregor’s block, play rapidly switched to the other end where a driving run from Ruaraidh Anderson set up James Falconer and he beat Sutherland with an angled drive to level the score at 2-2.

Kingussie now began to dominate and after a spell of pressure, during which they were denied several times by fine stops from Sutherland, they scored once again when Roddy Young, brought on after the break to sharpen up the Kings’ attack, played in Anderson to score the winner.

Kingussie may be delighted but for Oban the result, is a blow. Although they never gave up and were unlucky not to equalise when Daniel Cameron hit the post in the 91st minute, they have only a few weeks left to refocus before the Camanachd Cup final against Newtonmore.