Accies Tour to Rome


Capitolina Development XV 17 Glasgow Accies 25

Friday 17th March 2006

Rome


Accies waited all season until they reached foreign soil before bring off their best performance of the year. Showing great maturity they stuck to their game plan for most of the 80 minutes of intense play to bring off an excellent victory.

Make no mistake this was a good Italian side made up of the remainder of their first team squad of 35, younger aspiring players from Rome University and local clubs and a couple of veterans to give the team stability. In the second half they added four of the first team to try to secure victory.

On a fine Roman evening, and with a light breeze in their favour, Accies pinned their opponents in their own 22 for a good part of the opening quarter. This was mainly achieved by excellent tactical kicking from scrum half Ali McLaren and stand off Jamie Doig, the latter has rarely kicked better.

Eventually the pressure told and a slick pass from Graeme Simpson, playing in the unusual position of centre (he is normally a second row), gave fellow centre Jonny Adams enough space to use his considerable height and strength to crash over for the opening try that was superbly converted by Ali McLaren from far out on the right.

Slowly but surely the giant Italian pack began to use their weight and power to get themselves back into the game and mid way through the half they drove over for an unconverted try to pull the score back to 7-5 in Accies favour.

Accies were determined not to be bullied and with considerable grit and determination they got back into the game. On two occasions the Italians discipline deteriorated and Ali McLaren made them pay with two well-struck penalties to give Accies a 13-5 half time lead.

Immediately after the restart Accies gave away a really soft converted try, caused by confusion in their defence, to put Capitolina right back into the game at 12-13.

Accies had to dig deep into their reserves of strength and slowly but surely they started to turn the screw. This was helped when the home side’s flanker was justifiably yellow carded for a vicious late tackle on winger Craig Wright who, due to a head knock, had to be replaced by the effervescent Max Henderson.

The fact that the opposition were a man down inspired Accies and after a particularly good bout of passing from inside their own half captain Andy Pogrel completed the move with a touchdown in the right hand corner to give Accies a 18-12 lead.

With just over 5 minutes of playing time remaining Richard McKnight, who had come on as a second half replacement, made a searing break that wrong footed the defence and his well timed pass released Mike Hermes who romped home from 40 metres for the clinching score. Ali McLaren converted and Accies lead looked comfortable at 25-12.

This Italian side would not lie down and scored a good try wide out on the right. Fortunately the conversion was missed and Accies were two scores ahead as injury time was played out.

Before finishing comment has to be made on the excellent quality of the refereeing. The local referee was knowledgeable, even handed and played advantage to good effect.

This victory will hopefully give Accies a new confidence to build on for nest season and the coaches Simon Wintle and Chas Afuakwah have to be congratulated along with the players for the preparation that went in before the start of the tour.

Accies XV

Ross Chassels
Mike Hermes
Jonny Adams
Graeme Simpson (replacement Richard McKnight 40 minutes)
Craig Wright (replacement Max Henderson 60 minutes)
Jamie Doig
09 Ali McLaren


01 Fraser Cameron (replacement Fabrizio Marchetti 70 minutes)

Matteo Giovanazzi
Kevin Horton
Peter Meiklem replacement Graeme Lusk 40 minutes
Mike Henry
Andy Pogrel
Colin Tennant (replacement Paul Allan 65 minutes
Stevie Winter

This article was originally posted on 19-Mar-2006, 22:40 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 20-Mar-2006, 13:18.