Grangemouth 22 Glasgow Accies 9


A bad day at the office for all the Anniesland based sides


With Hawks losing to Currie in the cup, GHK going down heavily to West of Scotland in the Shield and Accies failing to overcome Grangemouth in the Bowl it was certainly not a day to remember for the sides based at New and Old Anniesland.

Accies lost to an average Grangemouth side that lie one division above them.

This is an inexperienced Accies side that are still trying to cope with a deficiency of players in certain key positions, but if you do not have them there is little that the coaches can do to resolve the matter.

Accies had plenty of ball despite a lineout that could only, in fairness, be called shambolic. Could it be down to the fact that so many players chose not to train on Thursday? Other than that they competed well at the breakdown, scrummaged well and never gave up trying. The main failure was the inability to win quick ball and get it to the wings where they are strong. They need to play with far greater width to give the wings space to make life difficult for the opposition. Too often it was aimlessly kicked away, mainly into the hands of the Grangemouth full back who was probably the man of the match.

Accies cause was not helped by a red card for second row forward Colin Malcolm for getting two yellows. The first for elbowing an opponent in a line out and the second for tackling a player in the air while he was attempting to catch a kick off.

It all started so promisingly for Accies. Grangemouth were kept pinned in their own half for the first ten minutes and if Accies could only have secured their own line out ball it might have been different. Gradually Grangemouth started to get into the game and their three-quarter line looked quite slick but good defence held them out until immediately after the sin binning of Malcolm. A breakaway from a short penalty down the right side lead to an unconverted try in the corner.

Two minutes later a poor clearing kick from scrum half McLaren, who otherwise had a good match, gave Grangemouth space to run the ball back at the depleted defence for a simple try.

At this stage it looked as if Accies might cave in but the opposite happened. They regathered and went on the offensive. In the 38th minute a Ross Chassels break out came to a shuddering halt from a high tackle. From the resulting penalty Ali Mclaren kicked a goal from 40 metres to make the score 10-3.

Deep into first half injury time Accies were awarded another penalty, this time on the halfway line. The referee indicated that it was the last play of the half so Ali Mclaren opted for the penalty. The resulting kick rebounded off the bottom of the post and struck a Grangemouth player. A man in front of picked up the ball and was immediately penalised for offside. From the simple penalty Ali Mclaren kicked the goal to end the first half with Accies only 10-6 down.

At the start of the second half Accies won an early line out only to lose control of the through a careless foot. This gave Grangemouth a chance of an easy score on the right with the Accies players contesting that the winger had a foot in touch but Grangemouth touch judge was having none of it.

The try was unconverted and Grangemouth lead 15-6.

Straight from the kick off Malcolm was carded and Accies played the remainder of the half with 14 men.

The game ebbed and flowed with neither side gaining any real advantage due to the number of handling errors and turnovers. Accies best chances came from three touchline breaks by Mclaren that were all stopped just short.

In the 50th minute Mclaren gave Accies some hope with a successful long-range penalty to bring them within one score at 15-9 but that was their final chance.

10 minutes from the end a missed tackled allowed the Grangemouth full back to glide through for a try that was converted.

All in all it was a good effort from Accies but in the end their inexperience told.

Secure in National 2 the best Accies can hope for is a third or fourth position in the league and the can concentrate on the GHK game at the end of February and the prestige match in Rome.

Recruitment for next season has now to start in earnest if the dream of Accies being back to where they started before the formation of Hawks is to be achieved.

This article was originally posted on 22-Jan-2006, 18:20 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 22-Jan-2006, 18:24.