Good morning everyone from an extremely stormy Glasgow. Hopefully it will stop raining soon and dry up enough to play the First Round Scottish Shield tie against Newton Stewart at New Anniesland at 2-30 pm tomorrow afternoon. We have played Newton Stewart twice already this season in the league winning the first game at New Anniesland 55-0 but losing at Bladnoch Park by 34-21,
Newton Stewart have a powerful pack of forwards but if the Accies front 8 play anything like as well as they did against league leaders Hawick YM it should give their back division a decent supply of the ball.
Sadly the influential Jamie Doig, last years captain, was injured last Saturday and looks like missing a number of games. This has meant that Stewart Seaton, who played well on the wing in his debut game last week moves into the centre and the vastly experienced Ross Chassels comes onto the wing. The remainder of the team is unchanged. There is a significant change on the bench with leading scorer Ali McLaren returning after a head knock.
Accies need a significant run in the shield to keep their season alive. They are unlikely to be either promoted or relegated as they have seven wins and seven losses from the fourteen games played. It has been a frustrating season not helped by a significant number of injuries. There was some good news last Saturday with the sight of flying winger Dougie Horne scoring a try for the 2nd XV from 60 metres. He should be ready to return to duty soon after major surgery on his knee.
There was a touch of nostalgia this week when John Morris who is in charge of the mini rugby section told me that his boys were going on tour to London in March. They are playing against London Scottish on Sunday morning 13th March prior to the England v Scotland game at Twickenham. If you live in London or are going to the game why not go along to Athletic Park and give the boys a cheer.
The nostalgia part is that it is exactly 30 years since the first Accies mini rugby tour also to London and also against London Scottish. That year we travelled by sleeper and went to the Caledonian Club for breakfast. The staff there talked about it for years as the boys had made such an impression on them. After playing Scottish the party went to Twickenham and in the evening to the theatre in London. There was no trouble in getting them to sleep that night. On the following day we went to Chelmsford RFC in Essex but the pitches were frozen so we drove back to London where a hastily arranged tour of HMS Belfast was organised before going home to Glasgow by train. I hope that this years boys have as much fun and enjoyment as the boys of thirty years ago.
We are very grateful to the mini rugby boys as week in week out they act very efficiently as ball boys and that goes a long way in making Accies look like an organised and professional Club.
Hopefully you will come to Anniesland tomorrow and stay on to watch France v Scotland on the big screen.

Alasdair Graham

This article was posted on 4-Feb-2011, 08:39 by Hugh Barrow.