Glasgow Accies 19 Newton Stewart 0
New Anniesland
Saturday 28th November 2009
 
Accies duly gained revenge for the early season defeat at Newton Stewart by running out comfortable winners by three tries and two conversions to nil. However they will be more disappointed by the failure to gain the four-try bonus point than by the win.
If ever there was a game of two half’s this was it. In the first Accies played some excellent rugby with close passing between forwards and backs at a standard as high as any this season. The quite simply kept their opponents pinned in the own half for 40 minutes. In fact it was not until the 65th minute that Newton Stewart gained possession inside Accies 22 other than speculative kicks.
Good distribution by stand off Ben Wilkinson gave centres Jamie Doig and Alan Wilson space to move the ball wide but still too often there was a tendency to cut back into the cover than use the pace on the wings.
In the 18th minute following a superb bit of inter passing between back and forwards enough space was created for Alan Wilson to burst right through the fragmented defence for a try converted by Richard McKnight.
Accies continued to keep the pressure on by moving the ball quickly away from the point of contact. This was good speedy rugby and entertaining to watch.
In the 31st minute Accies were awarded again for their endeavour when an excellent pick up by N.8 Cruz from the base of a scrum was fed to Richard McKnight. He made a few more yards before finding Mike Hermes on his shoulder. The dummy run by fullback Brad Bell pulled the cover defence wide and Mike Hermes turned on the after burners to sail through the gap for a well-constructed second try.
12-0.
Finally on the stroke of half time Jamie Doig broke clear and kicked ahead. Brad Bell following up picked the ball neatly and found Craig Wright on his outside. The little winger had a clear passage and sailed through from 25 metres to score beside the posts for a try again converted by Richard McKnight.
19-0 and halftime. Overall a tidy performance all round, solid up front in scrums, rucks and lineout and fluent back play that always had the potential to score tries.
What happened in the second half is better glossed over? The back play became cluttered and unstructured and as a result the forwards lost their dominance and confidence. Newton Stewart quickly realised this and started to capitalise on Accies hesitancy. Their rolling maul steamrollered the Accies pack up field and their scrummaging regularly pushed Accies off the ball. They started to win the Accies lineouts, an area that Accies had performed well in during the first 40 minutes. Overall they gave Accies a hard time during the half but still rarely looked like scoring a try due to Accies solid defence that stood up well during this torrid period.
The only point of note was a superb break by Mike Hermes through the centre of the field that had try stamped all over it but unfortunately the last two passes slowed the momentum and the chance was lost.
There was one bit of encouraging news and that was the return of Dougie Horner in the centre who came on in the second half. He always looked lively with his tricky little runs that are so hard to predict.
 
Next week Accies are away to Cambuslang and although they are close to the bottom of the table Accies will have to play for the whole 80 minutes to be certain of victory.
There are 9 games left and therefore a potential of 45 points. Accies may have to get all of them to get promotion.
 
 

This article was originally posted on 29-Nov-2009, 16:40 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 29-Nov-2009, 18:21.