Cumbernauld 2ndXV 13 Glasgow Accies 2ndXV 0

Auchenkilns Park, Cumbernauld

Saturday 14th October 2006


After last weeks narrow defeat to Allen Glens, the 2ndXV needed a win to keep them in touch with the league leaders. A tough game was expected, as Cumbernauld have won 3 from four of their opening games. We had heard through the rugby grapevine that the Cumbernauld pack were very old, heavy & aggressive & would play the game around that strength….which is exactly what they did!!

To be fair to the 2ndXV, who had 3 new faces in the line up: Australian Brad Wirth, Neil Paterson & Graeme Kerr, they played the most open expansive rugby to try & run the heavy pack around the pitch to tire them out. Unfortunately, the ref allowed them to slow play down, force us to wait for them to reach the plays etc which did not suit our game plan.

Special mention must go to Nigel Campbell, who agreed to come out & coach the 2ndXV pack on Thursday nights, who installed the belief into the guys that they are good enough o run everything & to enjoy the game. Fair to say that with the exception of two clearance kicks we ran everything from our own twenty-two all day – traditional Accie rugby which is exciting to watch & enjoyable to be part of. Nigel, after Thursday night’s session, confirmed the obvious…the 2ndXV are a talented team with some great young players….who need to play quick expansive rugby in order to compete against the older heavier teams that you traditionally find in the 2ndXV leagues.

Nigel summed it up at half-time in saying, at 5-0 down, that Cumbernauld were feeding off our own errors & the try came from a turnover at the breakdown. He added that the defence was solid & handling first class.

The second half saw Accies start to find some holes in the slowly tiring home defence…unfortunately their star player at Full Back cleared everything with a very good boot & had two try saving tackles to keep Accies from registering on the score sheet. Accies started to take the quick 4-man lineouts, and get the forwards running into spaces in the home backline. In particular Digby & new man Brad, our centre partnership for the day, ran aggressively at the defence line & gave the forwards a real target to hit. Paul White, playing his first full game for the 2ndXV since his collar bone break, made some great runs down the touch & Dave Miller was solid at full back, hitting the line at pace and always looking for the gap.

With only 5mins to go, the home team scored from a rolling maul with their heavy forwards, missed the conversion & them converted a penalty in the last minute to leave the final score 13-0.

Whilst desperately disappointing to lose this game after the effort put in by the whole team there are loads of positives to take forward to next weekend’s crunch game with GHK. The backs, for the first time this season, ran through all the moves & attacked at every opportunity. The forwards won some great lineout ball & once they realised the home team was tiring started to take quick penalties & secured great 2nd phase ball for the backs.

The guys enjoyed some good hospitality from the Cumbernauld guys, all of whom made the effort to chat to us over a beer. We look forward to welcoming them to Anniesland later in the season….when we will look to run them off the park!!

Any supporters who are coming down to Anniesland next weekend…whilst keen to have a loud support for the 1stXV vs Kilmarnock…would be well advised to come and se the 2ndXV play GHK & continue with the policy of playing running open rugby.

Team:

Dunn

Marchetti

Franklin

Whitemore

Buchanan

Lloyd

Kerr

Taylor

Wilson

White

Digby

Wirth

Paterson

Miller

Subs:

Wason

Hodgekiss

This article was posted on 16-Oct-2006, 10:23 by Hugh Barrow.