Kilmarnock 22 v Glasgow Accies 6 Match Report

Bellsland, Kilmarnock

March 3rd



“Accies get stuck in the mud!”



On a wet and windy day in Kilmarnock, Accies’ season ground to a halt in the mud at Kilmarnock’s Bellsland ground.

The weather and heavy ground conditions dictated that 10 man rugby was going to be the order of the day and sadly for an Accies team, without a number of first choice players due to injury, that favoured the experienced, heavy Kilmarnock pack to a T.



The initial signs were good for Accies playing into the wind and rain as they opened brightly but soon the Kilmarnock pack reverted to type and played “up the jumper” rugby to grind Accies down and this tactic paid dividends as they opened the scoring after 22 minutes. Following a lineout Kilmarnock used the rolling maul to drive over the line from 5 metres out for the first score of the day.

5 – 0 Kilmarnock

This seemed to spark Accies into life as they then had a good 10 minute spell where they moved the ball around well between forwards and backs and clearly Kilmarnock had no idea how to combat this as their heavy pack did not like the prospect of running around the pitch and their backline were at sixes and sevens in defence. Eventually, some cynical offending from Kilmarnock resulted in Accies opening penalty score from Kenny Weir.

Kilmarnock read the signs that an open game would expose them to Accies’ free flowing game plan and reverted to type using the wind to gain field position. It will be interesting to see what clubs at this level do when the new experimental laws become official as so many teams at National League 2 depend on the maul as a tactic of choice.

The inability of Accies to deal with Kilmarnock’s rolling maul led to two quick scores for Kilmarnock right on half time as the wind and driving rain were at their peak and Accies couldn’t break out of the stranglehold Kilmarnock’s pack had on the game to this point.

Half time 17 – 3 to Kilmarnock



As so often happens, the rain stopped and the wind died down but the break gave Accies a chance to re-group and their early pressure pays off with a second Kenny Weir penalty kick to bring Accies back to life for a few minutes.

17 – 6 to Kilmarnock.

As with the first half Kilmarnock read the signs that an open game would expose them and again revert to type playing classic 10 man rugby, given the conditions it was exactly the right thing to do, the disappointing aspect was that Accies couldn’t break the strangle hold the Kilmarnock pack had on the game. What was also disappointing was that when Accies won turnover ball they too often kicked the possession back to Kilmarnock. At one turnover, Accies choose to run out from their own line moving the ball quickly wide, Kilmarnock’s backs were in total disarray as the ball was moved out to full back Kenny Weir who should passed to the unmarked Craig Wright who, although still with 70 metres to run, had no opposition ahead of him and would surely have scored a spectacular long range try. As it was Kenny chose to kick and Kilmarnock scrambled across to clear the danger.

Sadly, from here on it was all downhill as Accies scrum fell away as a force and attacking chances are lost with Accies losing 7 scrums in a row. Following the last of these scrums the Kilmarnock standoff kicked ahead into the corner and their pacey left winger won the race for the touch down to complete the scoring and the misery for Accies on a dark and miserable day in Ayrshire.

22 – 6 to Kilmarnock.



Regards,



Stephen

This article was posted on 4-Mar-2007, 15:27 by Hugh Barrow.