A blustery afternoon at Anniesland welcomed our visitors from the East to a main pitch, looking in remarkably good order, despite the torrential rain through the week. Disappointment in the crowd when the home supporters realised that Preston Lodge did not bring their Halloween ladies with them to the away fixture!

The notes for the match were initially held up when yours truly was faced with operating the digital scoreboard for the first time. Slightly prematurely a score of 1 - 0 was put up before Andy Fleming had a chance to slot the first penalty chance of the afternoon.

A scrappy half marked by penalty attempts on both sides due to offside infringements, killing the ball or high tackles. Throughout the initial exchanges GHK looked the more dangerous of the sides creating good second phase ball and showing a willingness to put the ball out wide.

Preston Lodge lost their centre through injury at the start of the second quarter. Our backs with Mike Aird sniping in attack and Scott Robertson looking useful in the centre had some good forages into opposition territory. Our ageing wing forward Gerry Hawkes making a good break and to the crowds astonishment trying a chip kick to beat the defence rather than relying on his experience and pace! At half time, fairly even with a penalty each at 3 - 3.

At the start of the second half PL missed a penalty, and the home team put together some good moves to move play to the opposition half, however some handling errors and stern defence prevented scoring despite periods of pressure on both touchlines. PL made good ground from broken play, handling the ball well to break through our defence at centre for a converted try.

Tony Herron retaliated with a good break, supported by Captain Hoffman, score 8 - 10. PL continued to try and exert pressure by driving mauls up the park, succeeding to score a try midway through the half, score 8 - 17.

The home side responded with their usual resilience with Greg Woolard scoring from a penalty awarded in the opposition 22. Good conversion by Andy Fleming brought the score back to 15 - 17. Could we keep up the pressure?

Over the course of the afternoon our eager right winger Joe Sergeant-Awuse looked keen to take on the opposition and thanks to good forward driving and quick passing the ball reached Joe in the PL 22, he managed to escape the defence and score in the corner. Andy Fleming almost hit a conversion Peter Brown would have been proud of, weaving a course indirectly towards the posts finishing hitting the bar on the way over, final score 22 – 17.

A fine victory for the home side against bigger opposition proving that with a hard working pack and by moving the ball wide to keep the game alive they are as good a match for any visiting team in the Shield.

This article was posted on 10-Feb-2011, 09:04 by Hugh Barrow.