Cupar

15th December 2007

Match Report



Accies travelled to Cupar in Fife to take on the league leaders Howe of Fife with a positive spring in their step and a real belief that they could cause an upset by getting in amongst the youthful Howe team. In the opening 15 minutes this is exactly what Accies did unsettling the Howe pack with some superb work, turning over ball at will and moving the ball around stretching the Howe defence. Sadly for Accies they could not convert this early pressure into points and Howe weathered the early storm and with their first real attacking move of the game scored the opening try as they sliced through Accies tacklers to score via their pacy left wing.



Howe 7 – Accies 0



Howe followed this up with a second try as Accies stand off Gareth Williams slipped when receiving the pass in his own goal area and Howe simply touched the ball down.



Howe 12 – Accies 0



Howe followed this up on 28 minutes with a penalty kick from 40 metres out.



Howe 15 – Accies 0



Accies finally got into the game with a try from Matteo Giovanazzi following a well worked lineout move from 10 metres out converted by Gareth Williams from the touchline.



Howe 15 – Accies 7



With half time looming and Accies back in the game they needed to see out time and regroup for a second half assault. Sadly, the story of Accies season, self inflicted errors came back to haunt Accies as they miss a kick to touch and Howe run the ball back, this time they kick ahead and their right wing won the race for the ball to touch down under the posts.



Howe 22 – Accies 7



Just to rub salt into the wound, a further Accies error resulted in Howe kicking a penalty right on half time to go clear.



Howe 25 – Accies 7 (Half Time)



Again, Accies open the second half very brightly but with Howe in possession a speculative kick ahead is badly sliced by the Howe full back, remarkably it lands in the Howe left wingers’ arms and he runs in from 30 metres.



Howe 30 – Accies 7



With the floodgates potentially about to open Accies rally themselves through the pack and take it to Howe. Following a series of penalty indiscretions close to Howe’s own try trying to prevent the try line the referee finally and rightly awarded the penalty try to Accies converted by Ali McLaren.



Howe 30 – Accies 14



The second half continued to ebb and flow with neither side getting on top although the Accies pack in the scrum and about the field were clearly the stronger but Howe’s back line had by far the greater cutting edge.



With ten minutes left Howe score again following a series of drives for the line.



Howe 37 – Accies 14



Finally, Howe rounded off the scoring via their excellent full back to close the game out at 42 – 14.



Overall, this young Howe side deserve their top of the league placing by virtue of being able to play the game making very few errors and keeping the ball alive until the opposition makes an error and they take the chances when they come. Accies in contrast lacked the cutting edge that would deliver tries that their hard working pack deserve, again Accies pack took the game to the opposition and came out on top in most areas but the team as a whole couldn’t convert pressure into points and sadly nearly all Howe’s tries came from Accies errors when missing touch with kicks and missing tackles.



Accies now have a couple of weeks over the festive season to regroup and work on their game to reduce the error count.



Regards,



Stephen

This article was originally posted on 16-Dec-2007, 23:42 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 16-Dec-2007, 23:42.