Rousing start from Highland
Highland 26, Dumfries 0
Published: 08 September, 2007
HIGHLAND travel to old rivals Glasgow Accies on Saturday in rugby's National Division Two – looking to notch their second win in a row.

Over the years, these two clubs have been involved in a number of close encounters, and this weekend should prove no different.

The Inverness side will be keen to take another set of winning points, but it will not be so easy.

Accies lost to Kilmarnock last weekend and will be keen to open their points account with a victory at New Anniesland.

Highland started their league programme with a convincing 26-0 home win against a well organised Dumfries outfit at Canal Park at the weekend.

The hosts, without international winger Craig Findlater who had a shoulder injury, played with the wind in the first half and did not really get into the game until halfway.

They did, however, score a decent try on the left through their winger Craig Little, who accepted a final pass and went over in the corner. He also managed to kick the conversion from the corner to put his side 7-0 up.

The visitors put together some good spells of possession, sometimes managing to break the Highland first time tackles, but could not get the score on the board to make an impact.

In attack, only Morris Dillon threatened in the first half and Highland should have scored more points with the benefit of the breeze.

The north men were soon starting to handle better and, with a good use of replacements by coach Hugh Mackintosh, three good second half tries were added. The first one of which came as a result of good handling in the backs with the ball being moved out to winger Tom McGowan, who sprinted in at the right corner to make it 12-0.

Then centre Euan Ferguson ran through, after a great piece of handling from Mcgowan and Morris Dillon, and scrum half Patrick Bowyer converted for an 19-0 advantage.

Finally, Ferguson ran through the middle again, pushing off a Dumfries defender to score his second try and Bowyer again converted to make the final score 26-0 – with the home side finishing strongly and fully deserving their bonus point.

Overall, the set pieces were solid and, although there were not many line-outs, the home team looked as if they could hold their own and more.

In the second half particularly, there was a lot of inter-passing between backs and forwards, which made lots of ground for the home side and the centre pairing of Ferguson and Ali Kennedy looked promising with both players going forward and tackling hard.

The Highland wingers were convincing, with McGowan adding a bit of pace when he got the ball and Dillon having his usual strong game.

The half back pairing of Bowyer and Andrew Wylie was sound enough, with the young scrum half having a good match in attack and defence and Wylie moved the ball about quite well.

Fijian Ula Tuitubou had some nice touches in midfield, and possibly could be used in the forwards in future – as he is a very strong tackler.

Up front, there were convincing performances from Matthew Thompson, Andrew Beattie and Paul Miller and Stevie Groat had a magic spell in the second half with a couple of great barges.

Highland skipper Gordon Fraser led from the front and, although playing with a dislocated finger, Jamie Strachan put back some good ball to his scrum half. Mackintosh will be happy to know that a number of first-team players were playing alongside in the reserve match against Craig Dunain and, with Epi Vikucea and Kevin Brown returning to training, there could be a bigger squad for him to pick from in the weeks to come.

Highland's second team won a stirring game against Craig Dunain by 36-15. They look forward to a second game in succession when they travel to Kingussie to play Strathspey on Saturday and hopefully they will have a reasonable squad of players to pick from.

This article was posted on 7-Sep-2007, 07:18 by Hugh Barrow.