GHK 30 Wigtownshire 18

GHK vs. Wigtownshire 27/9/08

Before the presidential gaggle was sorted in position, the referee awarded a penalty to ‘Shire and for the first time this league season GHK found themselves behind. 0-3 in less than 1 minute, this was not going to be any kind of cakewalk. A large, stuffy and street wise ‘Shire pack were going to make life difficult for our forwards all afternoon.
Our young prop Josh Hamilton had a pretty good breenge up the middle and order was somewhat restored after 8 minutes when a lineout allowed Andy McTavish to burst through and feed Davy Whyte for the first try. Conversion by full back Andy Fleming. 7-3.
Another converted penalty by Wigtownshire brought it back to 7-6 a few minutes later.
The GHK backs undoubtedly had the edge but our forwards struggled to supply clean possession and too often we lost good ball in the loose.
Again big Andy McT’s excellent pressure set up Davy Whyte to go in under the posts and once again Andy Fleming did the business. 14-6 after 22 minutes.
This Wigtownshire side was never going to lie down and their forwards soon had our guys under pressure again. They were rewarded with a penalty which their reliable no.10 duly converted 14-9.
A loose ’Shire clearance kick was well fielded by Mark Hannah and his inside pass to Andy Fleming gave him a chance to put in a good touch finder. A scrum a few seconds later set up quick ball for the half backs Mike Aird and our new find at outside half Josh Mihill to combine nicely and put Rory Love over to make it 19-9. Andy F was very unlucky with conversion which came back off the post.
Half time 19-9

5 minutes into the second half and Mike Borthwick made a great chase to gather and put Mark Hannah over for the bonus point - sighs of relief from the assembled bufties. Unconverted 24-9.
Our savoir faire was somewhat ruffled as Wigtownshire just refused to let us have our own way and in the space of 7 minutes 2 penalties put them at 24-15. Even though our backs were handling very well when they did get the ball, particularly young Mihill, we just could not get over the line - despite one very close thing for Davy in the corner.
A couple of Disco breenges got us a bit excited but we just could not hang on to the loose ball.
Wigtownshire really had us worried after another penalty in 57 minutes made it 24-18 and far too close for comfort. Despite it being very unlikely that the Wigtowshire backs were going to threaten, it was some considerable relief when Andy Fleming banged over a couple of penalties to make it a much safer 30-18
Wigtownshire’s forwards continued to make life uncomfortable but the end result was by now secure and GHK hung on to record another bonus point win 30-18.
Still top of the league 5 points clear.
The red dress seemed to be heading for Rory Love after an interesting pirouette and triple entrechat left him in a heap past the ball. However, given where we were, and with Paw Parker watching, Darcy got the nod.
A noisy but largely uneventful journey home saw some 13 nippers inculcated into the GHK bus tour family.

A plea from the heart - Disco and the guys need you to turn out at training. We have a great bunch of good, young players and a fantastic opportunity this season to get out of this league but we need real commitment and no rifle dropping!

Lastly a word of thanks to the Wigtownshire physio who stepped in to assist in the absence of our two regulars.

The Veep.

This article was posted on 29-Sep-2008, 13:33 by Hugh Barrow.