Highland 13 – Glasgow Accies 5

6th January 2006

Canal Park, Inverness



“Accies blown off course in the Highlands”



With 5 changes to the pack due to illness and unavailability, resulting in Stephen Winter and Chas Afuakwah coming temporarily out of retirement, it was always going to be tough for Accies to come away from Inverness with a win and so it proved to be on a cold & windy but bright Canal Park, Inverness.

Highland, kicking off with the low sun and a very strong breeze behind them, started the game with vigour and had all the early pressure playing a fast, open style of rugby, however poor execution by Highland and strong gritty defence from Accies repelled the early thrust from Highland. There were some tight moments for Accies as the strong wind meant Accies spent most of the first half camped in or around their own 22 metre zone as kicking into the strong breeze was of no value and so the ball had to be run out of defence and as is often the case when the opposition do regain possession the ball was kicked deep back into Accies half to keep the pressure on.

This early pressure resulted in a penalty being awarded to Highland in front of the posts which was stroked over by their full back Morris Dillon. 3 – 0 to Highland.

Highland kept up the pressure and disappointingly for Accies Graeme Lusk was sent to the sin bin for 10 minuntes for bizarrely breaking up a fight involving the Highland scrum half, who had been involved in three scuffles already with the match only 20 minutes old. Sadly the referee reacted to crowd noise rather than actually seeing the whole situation and making an appropriate evaluation.

This proved to be crucial for Accies as with the extra man Highland managed a succession of driving rucks close to Accies line which they eventually scored through their flanker Scott McKenzie. The conversion was made and Highland led 10 – 0.

This appeared to sting Accies into action as they then had their best spell of play, following a succession of driving mauls and strong running through the centres which took Accies into the Highland 22 metre zone Accies spun the ball out left for Craig Wright to speed past his opposite man to score in the corner. Sadly into the wind the conversion was narrowly missed. 10 – 5 to Highland at half time.

As the second half began Accies felt confident they could push on to win the game and both Accies wingers Mike Hermes and Craig Wright made a number of strong runs but Accies were just not able to finish these promising moves off.

Highland then made a number of positional changes in the second half which seemed to give them extra spark in attack and steadily they built momentum and gained the upper hand, not the least assisted by the referee who allowed a number of Highland infringements to go unpunished throughout the second half. Eventually Highland pressure told and they were awarded a penalty 15 metres in front of Accies posts which they converted for the final score 13 – 5 to Highland.

The Accies players were extremely disappointed in losing this game as it was a game which could have been won but they ran out of gas in the second half when ideally they would have stepped up a gear.

This defeat effectively finishes any slim promotion aspirations Accies had however by re-grouping and focussing on a good run in the Cup competition there is still a good opportunity to deliver some success.



Team



R Chassels
M Hermes
B Wirth
J Doig
C Wright
G Williams
A Wilson

A Pogrel
A Jackson
S Winter
C Afuakwah
G Lusk
C Clark
C Tennant
M Giovanazzi



Subs: (All used)



D Whitemore

This article was posted on 8-Jan-2007, 08:47 by Hugh Barrow.