Whilst all eyes are on the Wright v Beattie clash on Friday night another interesting clash happens the follwing day at Old Anniesland when GHK take on the men from Ardencapel
GHK supremo Charlie Dunlop will be pitching his wits against former GHK and Hawks star Liam MacIntyre


Trinity Accies vs GHK match report

Trinity vs GHK 12/9/09
The limited but vociferous presidential gaggle assembled at Bangholm on a glorious, sunny day in Edinburgh. GHK kicked off into a stiff breeze blowing down into our left corner.
We were soon to realise this was going to be a tough afternoon as Trinity ran strongly at us with sustained pressure leading to a good try after just 5 minutes. Two minutes later and some seriously weak defence let the Trinity no 13 blast through the centre and touch down under the posts. Only 7 minutes gone and we were 12-0 down – not encouraging!
The Trinity no 10 had exactly the measure of the wind and time after time blasted the ball over the, frankly dozy,defence pinning us back into our half.
The home forwards decided to get in on the passing and handling game and drove deep into our 22 through several pairs of hands. Robbie Stewart cleared well but we were still well and truly under the cosh.
Can only assume the Trinity no 5 took pity on us because a silly dose of verbals with the ref saw the yellow card out and he lurched to the cooler.
Andy Drummond started a good charge up field and from this we saw our first sustained bit of good handling but we went offside at the loose and a fine kick from the Trinity full back made it 15 – 0 after 22 minutes.
Shortly after the restart Rory Love made a telling break and fed Matt Horner to set up a good attacking position inside the Trinity 22. This was Rory’s last contribution as he limped off with a damaged calf muscle. To compound this disappointment we lacked composure behind the scrum and tended to chuck the ball about frantically when cool heads were required. We really must stop trying the 20 or 30 yard passes as they so often end in tears of frustration on the touchline.
The backs did manage a decent passage of handling and Gun had a good run down the wing. Unhappily, sloppy defence reared its ugly head again anf the Trinity no 13 did a reprise of his earlier break just in case we had missed it. 38 minutes gone and looking bleak at 22-0. That was all for the first half.
The second half started with a really strong effort from the GHK forwards and we put some real pressure on the Trinity line. The old refrain of careless hands came to Trinity’s rescue and they charged back up field to score again. No conversion 27-0.
At this point it would be fair to say that the forwards and the ever present Mike Aird were the reason it was only 27-0.
The boys picked themselves up though, and Davy Whyte got us on the score sheet with a nicely struck penalty. This was soon cancelled out by a Trinity goal after we again put the ball down in the middle and this made it 30-3.
Mike Aird continued to be a real nuisance at the base of the scrum and after a typical snaffle of the Trinity scrum ball the forwards drove into their 22 and from a resulting penalty the great leader of men that is Disco breenged over from 5 metres for our first try. 30-8. At last something for the gaggle to cheer but too little too late was the feeling.
The forwards stuck manfully to the task and deserve plaudits for shunting the big Trinity pack in the tight and loose unfortunately their efforts were too regularly undone by our uncharacterisically careless backs. They must have read my mind at this point because they managed a very sound passage of play putting the ball out through the hands to establish a good attacking position inside the Trinity 22. The pressure stayed on this time and the ball was fizzed out to Matt Horner coming into the line on a fine angle and bursting over for a try which Davy converted well.
Final score 30-15
I suspect Helensburgh will pose another serious challenge next week so we have to tighten it up behind the scrum and cut out the careless, reckess stuff. This team is definitely good enough to do better and the forwards have been outstanding.

The Pres
Team: D Whyte, J Shannon, D Hoffman, M Horner, R Love, R Stewart, M Aird, A Forbes, G Reid, C McClay, A Drummond, H Parker, G Woolard, P Broadbent, R McCormack
Subs. A Fleming, A Gunning, G Dobbin

This article was originally posted on 16-Sep-2009, 06:52 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 16-Sep-2009, 06:53.