“Accies come through tough opener”
 
Accies began this season league campaign with a home win against a tough and combative Waysiders side now coached by Iain “Moggsy” Morrison (formerly of New Anniesland & West but more recently coaching for 10 years at the helm of Hamilton during their rise through the leagues).
 
The opening salvos were tight as expected with Accies looking to get off to a flyer and Waysiders (having taken a heavy defeat to Marr in their final warm up game) looking to get some stability in the game and keep it tight and close, and it was a theme that stretched throughout the match, but finally after 20 minutes Accies opened the scoring with a try from Kenneth Beattie.
Accies made good ground and forced a 5m lineout from Waysiders line. Scrum half - Robert Beattie had the first snipe at the line from the lineout and at the following ruck, big brother Kenneth snapped up the ball and burrowed his way over for the try converted, into a tricky breeze, from the touchline by Stephen O’Donnell.
 
Accies 7 – Waysiders 0
 
Accies moved further ahead with a Stephen O’Donnell penalty on the 30 min mark, however an Accies offside offence allowed Waysiders to claw back to 10 – 3 by the half time mark.
 
The second half continued in the vein of Waysiders resilliant defence and containment as Accies couldn’t make the breaks fully count. Sometimes the support runner was just out of reach, sometimes terrific defence and sometimes just a bit too loose but that will come with a couple more training sessions under the players’ belts. Waysiders were not just lying back and posed tough, physical questions of Accies with a big heavy pack and thumping runs through their centres. However, big heavy packs tend to tire early and Waysiders were no exception to this rule and whilst Accies were getting stronger they struggled to pull away and indeed a sloppy late tackle by Accies new stand-off, Cameron McColl, meant a double penalty back up to halfway, Waysiders got a further penalty and they had pulled back to 10-6.
 
This scribe’s sixth sense felt that even with 15 minutes to go a 4 try bonus point could still be achieved and right on cue an Accies scrum pick up led to the ball reaching Dougie Horne (fresh on the pitch as sub for Simon Young) on the wing and he dove over the line for the unconverted try. 15 – 6
Suddenly, the dam had been breached and the players could sense the opportunity and were all over Waysiders searching for the next try and following a scrum mid field Stu Smith unpicked the lock and wove his way over for the third try, converted by Stephen O’Donnell to seal the game.
 
Sadly for Accies, the fourth try didn’t come and Waysiders got a consolation try in the last play of the game, snaffling a loose lineout ball 10 metres out and their big pack rumbled over to close the game at 22 – 11.
 
Overall, this scribe was happy for the win to get the season underway, winning is a good habit and breeds confidence. The coaches will grumble as coaches always do, but this scribe saw a lot of positives, the scrum was again excellent against a much bigger pack, a new youthful backline is emerging, a first game win is under the belt and a few training sessions will iron out the kinks so lots to be positive about.
Next weeks game away to Newton Stewart will be tough, it always is down there but Accies can go with some confidence.

This article was posted on 4-Sep-2011, 11:41 by Hugh Barrow.