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Saturday 29th September 2007 National Division 2 Glensburgh Park
GRANGEMOUTH STAGS RFC 6 – 50 HIGHLAND RFC
Grangemouth slumped to a second successive defeat against a well organised Highland team in the league this weekend. The Stags were rocked by losing two of their integral players from last weekends match away to Newton Stewart, with Charlie Gillanders still recovering from a head wound and Anthony Hayes resting his pulled hamstring.
The home side were further compounded, when for the second week in a row a player was injured and unable to continue after the opening minutes, when scrum-half Roddy McPherson was carried off with suspected knee ligament damage. This led to a shuffling of the pack and backs, with hooker Davie Wilson moving to 9. This clearly had an unsettling effect on the team structure as the game progressed.
Grangemouth actually started the better of the two sides in the opening 20 minutes, with stand off Campbell giving the Portsiders a deserved lead from an early penalty. Although Highland responded with a well worked try and conversion out wide, the score was narrowed with a further penalty to narrow the score to 7-6 to the away team.
However, there were not many further signs of brilliance for the Stags in the opening half, as the Highlanders began to dominate the open play. Their scrum half in particular, Scotland’s current U19 starter, began to dictate play with some excellent sniping runs that were ably supported by his midfield. The ball was regularly shipped wide and found joy in exploiting the weak tacking in the Grangemouth defence. The score had motored up to 24-6 at the half, when again a further injury to the home side saw Murray Forbes requiring 11 stitches in an eye wound. Unable to continue, this forced a further substitution in the dying minutes of the half with Graeme Mair making his first entry of the season.
The second half did not show any marked improvement from the Glensburgh side with little penetration of the Highland line. The scrums and lineouts were still looking solid, with in fact a number of lineout ball taken against the head, but the backs were unable to conjure any magic to unlock a disciplined and well organised rear guard. Kicking became less of an option as they started to chase the game and go for the tries, but too often the ball was spun wide, but was either lost in contact, slowed down, or simply hit up in the same zone where it was easily dealt with.
At the end of the match, the players did not emerge from the dressing room for some time as they conducted a self inquest in to where the game had unravelled. With the club having got off to a relatively positive start to the season, both the players and coaches are keen to restart the campaign and get back to winning ways as soon as possible. There still remains many signs of improvement from last season, including discipline on the field, and there is still many fixtures left to put in to practice the fruits of the hard training so far, but the heads were down after two performances on the bounce where the team did not do themselves any justice. It was disappointing that Grangemouth lost their 100% home record, while the fixtures keep coming thick and fast. They hit the road to travel to Stewartry next weekend, while it is hoped that Gillanders and Hayes will make a welcome return, but very doubtful that Forbes or McPherson will be available after knocks sustained. Lee Spence will make his last appearance for the club when he emigrates to New Zealand following the fixture. Currently the clubs top try scorer for the season, he will no doubt be a loss to the club, but we wish him all the best for the future and hope that he goes out on a high. Cards: N/A Scorers: J Campbell: Pen (2) Grangemouth: 1. Billy Tulloch 2. Davy Wilson 3. Brian Johnstone 4. Gavin Curran 5. Steve Binnie 6. Davie McFarlane 7. Craig Gibb Subs: |
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