Accies 24 Newton Stewart 19

“Accies hold on for a hard fought bonus point victory”

Whilst the Scotland football team were trundling to a 0 – 0 draw it was all action at New Anniesland as Accies hosted Newton Stewart for their first home league fixture of the season.
Last weeks loss to Kilmarnock was consigned to the distant memory banks as Accies opened brightly, moving the ball around the pitch with pace and purpose from backs and forwards alike with Captain Andy “Action” Jackson back in the fold and leading from the front. However, bizarrely, it was Newton Stewart who opened the scoring after 10 minutes with their first thrust. Accies had the play on the halfway mark but a fumbled pass saw NS hack forward, recycled quickly and they powered over to open the scoring 0 – 7.

Accies responded and on the 18 minute mark levelled the scores with a superb try from Ali McLaren. The ball went through all the hands to the left to Dougie Horne who cut back through the middle, fed Jamie Doig and a superb off load saw Ali find the space to sprint on from 22m out. 7 – 7 (Con: A. McLaren)
Within 4 minutes, Accies had stretched their lead as full back Stu Seaton powered over in the left hand corner. 12 – 7
Accies kept going and Dougie Horne scored a storming try, powering back on the angle from the wing to score under the posts and Accies had some clear water at 19 – 7 (Con: A. McLaren)
Accies then closed out the first half with the 4 try bonus as Kenny Beattie powered over in the corner following an Ali McLaren half break and excellent interplay with Dougie Horne & Kenny Beattie and Kenny had enough to get over the line. It was 24 – 7 and the half time whistle blew.

The old cliché is that it’s a game of two halves and that was never truer than today as NS reshuffled their backline bringing on some of their “power” runners and suddenly Accies were on the back foot and it was the 20th minute before Accies had their first meaningful attack when Craig Wright glided through the NS backline, the line beckoning but the tap tackle saved the day for NS and the chance slipped away.
NS got their reward, on the 25th minute, for all the pressure they had been building and scored in the corner. 24 – 12. They had their dander up and continued to dominate and after a succession of short range attacks (superbly defended by Accies) alas the pressure told and they squeezed over for their third try, 24 - 19 and with 4 minutes remaining suddenly the game was up for grabs.
In the dying minutes NS had to “go for it” but Accies rallied and squeezed them into their own 22m, the turnover was won and the game was over with Accies breathing a small sigh of relief. They deserved to win but made hard work of it in the second half but they’ll be happy with the win and the bonus point for four tries.

This article was originally posted on 8-Sep-2012, 17:36 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 8-Sep-2012, 17:56.