Caithness 67 Glasgow Accies 18

When you have gorged on success for a few seasons it is hard to see your team being thumped two weeks in a row. Last week it was said it could only get better. It didn’t it only got worse.
Every team seems to have a point in time when they hit rock bottom and every thing that they do transpires against them. The start of this season has been like this, a horrendous catalogue of injuries, University re-sits; work commitments, late holidays and a spate of weddings have left Accies with a distinct shortage of players. .
Accies made the long journey to Thurso, which included an overnight stop in a hotel that made the Beirut Hilton, after an American bombing raid, look palatial. To be fair the beds were good the breakfast excellent and the weather and scenery spectacular. That was more than could be said for the pitch. A herd of Aberdeen Angus cows could have lived off it till Christmas.
The scratch Accies side with Andy Pogrel, propping for the first time, the coach Simon Wintle and the retired Stevie Winter on the bench, simply could not contain a highly powerful and competent Caithness pack who had upper body strength to spare.
For long periods of the game Accies were on the attack but they simply could not hold onto the ball long enough to score. As each move broke down or was turned over Caithness simply strolled up the park and scored. With better tackling and more determination to hold on to possession this result could have been different.
When your luck is out every bounce of the ball seems to find its way into the hands of the opposition. Charged down kicks, overhead passes going astray, poor lineout communications always seemed to find the hands of Caithness players.
This is not to mention the injury count. Accies ended the game with 13 on the pitch and 5 off it including two in the A&E department in Wick 20 miles away.
This is not to deny that Caithness on their own patch is a good side.
Towards the end of the game Mike Hermes found himself playing in his own position on the right wing and simply scorched home for two very good tries to make the score respectable.
The game started badly for Accies. At the very first scrum the novice front row gave away a free kick and the scrum half strolled over as everyone looked at him in amazement.
Caithness were already looking good but their habit of falling over the ball on Accies side of the ruck, a frequent transgression, cost them a penalty that Ali McLaren knocked over from 30 metres and 15 metres in from touch.
The Caithness players knew the pitch and were aware that if you run from the right touchline diagonally down the slope you can gather a great deal of momentum which their right winger did to great effect. Accies realised this 10 minutes from the end when Hermes scored.
At 12-3 down McLaren missed a long range penalty and then kicked one from nearer the posts. 12-6 down up the slope and against the breeze did not look too bad for Accies especially as they had barely crossed the half-way line. But it could not last and it didn’t although the next try was unlucky. If it had been videoed it could have been used to demonstrate to referees what the tractor and trailer law means. To be fair to Gary Duncan the referee from Ellon he had a pretty good match considering it was his first for over a year. A penalty followed and then a try from a charged down kick to bring the score to 27-6. With half time approaching and the use of the elements to come it was not all over until Accies lost the ball deep inside their opponents half and a missed tackle in the centre cost a try and a conversion for a halftime scoreline of 34-6.
This score completely knocked the stuffing out of Accies and they could not take advantage of the slope and the elements. Poor tackling and silly errors continued as the score mounted and it was only after coach Wintle and Stevie Winters came onto the pitch that the opposition were knocked back in the tackle. From that stage Accies scored two tries to one.
Defeat was sore but the spirits soon retuned for the long journey arriving in Glasgow at 1-30am.
Well done bus driver Angus you were a winner.
Next week Accies are on their home pitch for the first time this season in the game against Stewartry. Three players return from weddings and a few will be available for the first time this season. If a prop forward can be found things will be better as all hope is not lost

This article was originally posted on 3-Sep-2006, 19:24 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 3-Sep-2006, 19:53.