Glasgow Accies 38 Greenock Wanderers 25

Saturday 29th November 2008

New Anniesland


“Revenge is Sweet”


On a perfect playing surface, and a cold but sunny and windless day Accies gained sweet revenge for the defeat by Wanderers earlier in the season. 6 tries to 3 seems a comprehensive enough victory but Accies were made to fight for every point by a Greenock side with an extremely lively back division. From the previous game Accies knew that Wanderers backs were capable of running in tries from any part of the park. There was a little nervousness at the start as Accies fielded a new standoff and centre partnership in the absence of Ryan Moseby, who has returned to New Zealand and Stewart Smith who was unavailable. Jamie Stewart returned after a week off and moved from wing to centre. Alan Wilson came into the centre from stand off and Gareth Williams moved forward from full back to stand off. Ross Chassels moved from the wing to full back and, on loan from Hawks, Mark Hannah came in on the left wing. Five changes in all from the threequarter line that played so well at Highland last week.

Unsurprisingly there were a few early anxious moments as the side took time to settle. Wanderers started aggressively and Accies were under pressure for the first ten minutes allowing Greenock to open the scoring with a simple penalty.

This seemed to stir Accies to action and within minutes their pack took over. In the next half hour they produced their best performance of the season. The Greenock forwards made the mistake of trying to match them up front but came off second best as Accies stormed to a 17-3 interval lead and scored three excellent tries in the process.

The first came in the 15th minute when Accies were awarded a penalty that they kicked to the left hand corner. From the resulting line out feed Alan Wilson cut back and found 2nd row forward Cruz on his elbow. Cruz loves nothing better than running at the opposition and he tore through the defence for a touchdown too wide out for Richard McKnight’s conversion attempt.

Accies were now using the rolling maul highly effectively and by this method drove their opponents back over 20 metres for Matt Smith to get the score.

Richard McKnight converted for 12-3

The third try was straight off the training ground. Cruz took up a short throw at the front of a lineout and he fed Jack Walker who simply sped over for the score.

Jack is proving to be the find of the season and his performance earned the ‘man of the match’ award for the second time this year.

The intensity of the Accies forwards in the half had effectively won the game by half time.


The second half proved to be a much more even affair with the Greenock resilience and back play causing no end of bother in an exhilarating game of rugby that was greatly enjoyed by a sizeable crowd who braved the cold weather.

Within five minutes of the start of the second half Richard McKnight secured the bonus point with a cheeky little run from the base of the scrum. He converted his own try for a 24-3 lead.

It was at this point that Accies took their foot of the pedal and allowed Wanderers to get back into the game.


First of all they kicked a penalty from in front of the posts and then scored a fairly fortuitous try from a kick through that rebounded of an Accies player and back off a Wanderers player and with the defence at sixes and sevens their centre ran through for an unconverted try. Now the score was a less comfortable 24-11.

Next it was Accies turn to get some good fortune. A Greenock move broke down in the middle of the field and the ball fell to Gareth Williams who sprinted 30 metres before being hauled down short of the line. Jamie Stewart was on hand to pick up and plunge over. Richard McKnight converted for 31-11.

Wanderers simply would not give up and within three minutes scored again when some slack Accies defending allowed their centre to slip through close to the posts for a converted try 31-18.

Stung by this Accies roared back through a great breakout by Robin Bryant and a 30-metre burst ended close to the line where replacement forward Chris Wright was on hand to score. Richard McKnight again converted for Accies final score and 38-18.

With all this action you might have thought that Wanderers would have accepted defeat but no. Once again they took advantage of some slack tackling to pull off, in injury time, one more converted try to complete the scoring.

This game was played in a great spirit and much of that was due to the way that the match official William Malone from Oban handled the proceedings.

Accies are proving to be a side of contradictions. Last week a superb defence laid the foundations of their best away performance. Today the defence was a bit slack but the forwards powerful display lead to the best home performance.

Next week they are away to Hillfoots. The two remaining games before Christmas are at home to Forrester on 13th December followed by Strathendrick in the 3rd round of the Scottish Cup on 20th December.

The incentive to winning the cup-tie is a home game on 10th January against Selkirk in the 4th Round

This article was posted on 30-Nov-2008, 11:41 by Hugh Barrow.