SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS

County grab themselves a lifeline



Published Date: 18 January 2009
By Iain Morrison at Bridgehaugh
Stirling County 12
Glasgow Hawks 10
WITH the top of the table looking increasing safe for Ayr after their victory over West of Scotland yesterday attention has turned to the Premier One relegation battle instead. Had Hawks won at Bridgehaugh it would have been well nigh impossible for Stirling County to escape the drop. Instead the home side showed great character to take the precious points on offer yesterday.

"We've definitely given ourselves a lifeline," said County coach Ian Jardine. "If we can keep playing like that then we have a chance. I thought that we defended well after giving up an easy first try but to be fair to Hawks they came back at us in the second half and took away most of our momentum.

"We took our chances well when they came but we missed a few early on as well. I think that is always going to happen in these conditions."

County won what was a scruffy and desperate basement battle in dreadful weather conditions by the narrowest of margins, but they could, and should, have had this one done and dusted by half time. The home side butchered any number of scoring chances in the first half with Brian Archibald the worst of several culprits. The leggy centre was first to react after a Hawks clearance kick was charged down. All Archibald had to do was roll over to score, but somehow he knocked on in doing so. Elsewhere Ben Addison picked one pass off his bootstraps with an overlap outside but the winger then slipped in the mud to ruin another scoring chance.

The outstanding player on display was County's teenage centre Danny Gilmour who made several breaks in the first half and scored a cracking try after one of them. Sadly his other line breaks came to naught either for a want of support runners or because County's passing suffered in the wet and the windy conditions.

Oddly it was Hawks who had got off to the best start as they controlled the ball from the kick off and set up fullback Craig Gossman to run over his opposite man for the opening try after just three minutes. Mike Rainey made no mistake with the conversion and, following Gilmours' effort, the two teams were tied for much of the first half. Replacement Garry Mountford had already spilled the ball with the Hawks line begging when the big prop made amends by grabbing what proved to be the winning score with the last move of the first half. Mountford crashed over from a short-range rolling maul albeit with a little help from his forward friends.

Despite enjoying the better of the deteriorating conditions after the break County failed to score in the second half but in the event it didn't matter.

A single penalty by Rainey, which narrowed the gap to just two points with a quarter of the match remaining, was all Hawks could manage.

In a bizarre twist of fate County's two try-scoring heroes nearly cost their club the precious points after both of them were shown the yellow card. Gilmour was sent off with 10 minutes remaining and Mountford saw yellow with just injury time still to play although the referee found at least seven minutes to add on to this match much to the consternation of the County faithful.

Somehow the 13-man home side managed to hold strong with some desperate defence as Hawks mounted one final attempt to wrestle the spoils away from them.

With five matches remaining, at least for the majority of the clubs, any number of clubs have been dragged into the relegation dogfight which promises to be a lot more interesting than the other end of the table.

Stirling County: J Hope; G Lindsay, D Gilmour, B Archibald (R Aitken 23 min) B Addison; R McGowan, G Calder; M Hunter, A Simpson (J Graham 27 min), W Davies (G Mountford 24 min), B MacFarlane (K Bryce 45 min), G Gilchrist, T Clarke, C Eadie, C Deacons.

Glasgow Hawks: C Gossman; J Wright, B Mohr (G MacDonald 30 min), I Noble, S Gordon; M Rainey, P Boyer (E Morrison 50 min); G Strain, G Mories, N Cox, N Caddell, A Kelly, M Whittleston (G Francis 52 min), G Strang, G Harkness.

Scorers: Stirling – Tries: Gilmour, Mountford. Conv: Hope. Hawks – Try: Gossman. Conv: Rainey. Pen: Rainey

Referee: A McMenemy.

This article was originally posted on 18-Jan-2009, 08:22 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 18-Jan-2009, 18:45.