Glasgow Accies v Kilmarnock
New Anniesland
23rd October 2010
 
‘Experience Tells’
 
When young Alan Birdsall ran onto the pitch at New Anniesland this afternoon he became the 37th player to represent the 1st XV this season. That statistic surely goes a long way to explain the above score and yet that was only part of the story. Accies lost, through injury, three of their most experienced players during the match through injury. The dynamic flanker Andy Jackson in the 7th minute with a back injury, his replacement Matt Smith before half time also with a back injury and Stewart Smith the centre and captain, mid way through the second half, with recurring cramp.
In the end Chris Wright a flanker was in the centre and David Calder a prop was at flanker. The team was already fairly makeshift with a hooker and flanker on the wings, scrum half Stephen O’Donnell at stand off and Craig Wright a winger at full back.
Even with this disruption Accies had a surprising amount of ball. The line out functioned well, Matteo Giovanazzi the hooker was secure even with a retreating scrum and some of the running when they had the ball was of good quality. Where they foundered was due to the number of times they were turned over due the their lack of physicality and the first time tackling around the fringes that left the outside players with too much to do. The current side is extremely light and inexperienced with so many regular players on the sidelines.
On a beautiful sunny day and a perfect pitch Accies kicked off towards the flats and immediately put Kilmarnock under pressure. Sadly pressure wasn’t enough and in the 7th minute Kilmarnock broke out when an Accies handling movement broke down. In a valiant effort to stem the flow Andy Jackson was injured and to add insult to injury Kilmarnock were awarded a penalty that they duly kicked. Kilmarnock leading 0-3 on their first venture over the half way line.
This score and Andy’s injury seemed to knock the stuffing out of Accies and tries flowed throughout the half. First a misunderstanding in the defensive set up allowed the centre to storm through the gap 0-10. Then slowness to react to a little chip through allowed a Kilmarnock player to get to the ball first . 0-17 and finally the difficulty in stopping the big Kilmarnock forward on the rampage from pouring through the defence for the third try. 0-22.
With 35 minutes played it seemed to be all over for Accies but they showed some guts and determination and took play to the Kilmarnock line. From a 5 metre line out the ball was spun along the back line and a miss pass found winger Tom Cullen in enough space to zip past his opposite number for a try in the left hand corner. Stephen O’Donnell struck a perfect conversion from the touchline to narrow the gap to 7-22
Half Time
The second period started well enough for Accies with Stephen O’Donnell kicking an early penalty to reduce the deficit even further to 10-22
The joy didn’t last long and when Kilmarnock latched onto a quickly taken penalty they were in at the corner for a converted try 10-29
Straight from the kick off Kilmarnock were straight back on the offensive and their big centre pairing again breached the first line of defence and romped away for another try. There was certainly the suspicion of a forward pass in this movement. 10-36
There then followed a bizarre passage of play. Accies were camped on the Kilmarnock line for several minutes and during this time Kilmarnock conceded six penalties in a row. They were extremely lucky not to have any player yellow carded or yield up a penalty try. Accies eventually were awarded a score for their endeavours. They got clean ball from a ruck on the right and moved across the line until Craig Wright ran a perfect angle from full back to get the touchdown. Again Stephen O’Donnell struck a good conversion to narrow the margin to 17-36.
Kilmarnock stormed back and Accies conceded another try in the left corner 17-41
At this stage the game turned into a farce with Claudio Urra of Accies being yellow carded and three Kilmarnock players joining him in the bin.
Accies must have thought that they had a chance of getting some scores with 14 men playing 12 but the referee had other ideas as he ended the game early and no injury time played.
From time to time sides go through the problem of having players unavailable but there is no alternative to playing with what you have got.
One positive factor was the performance of Chris McLellan, he was everywhere and deservedly won the man of the match for the second week in a row.
Next week Accies play Annan at New Anniesland and there is a reasonable chance that Brad Bell (full back), Mike Hermes(wing), Ali McLaren( stand off), Fabi Marchetti(prop), Jack Walker(No 8) and several other fringe players will be available for selection.
 

This article was posted on 23-Oct-2010, 21:27 by Hugh Barrow.