“Accies buffeted in the storm”
 
The return derby fixture in the league also doubled up as the “Dave Gilmore Memorial Trophy” fixture for this season as Accies & GHK met under the lights on what was pretty close to Hurricane conditions as high winds and heavy rain all day meant an early pitch inspection, heavy weather clothing all round and indeed warming up on a side pitch as to not damage the main pitch ahead of the contest.
 
The conditions didn’t seem to bother GHK as they flew out of the blocks. Playing into the conditions and keeping the ball in hand they went at Accies at full tilt throwing the ball around to pleasing effect but not delivering the cutting edge as they had done in the first encounter at New Anniesland earlier in the season. Accies defence was good and indeed on their first real foray into GHK territory, after 15 minutes, came away with three points via Stephen O’Donnell. 0 – 3
 
Undeterred GHK responded but again Accies strong defence held them at bay and with Accies second real attack they nearly scored again as Stephen O’Donnell’s kick drifted wide on the wind and the “smash‘n’grab” tactics looked promising as long as the defence held out.
Stung by the prospect of possibly going six points down GHK piled even more pressure on Accies with some very enterprising play and indeed opened the door, but as three GHK players were running in and passing the ball the old adage of “too many cooks spoiling the broth” came to pass as they conspired to drop the ball with the line at their mercy. However, fortunately for GHK a tough call against Accies followed a minute later and GHK equalled the scores at 3 – 3 after 35 minutes.
Giving cheap penalties has been a problem for Accies and right on half time GHK were able to knock over a penalty right on half time. 6 – 3
 
The second half was going to be tough for Accies as they turned into the wind and rain and had a let off as GHK missed a penalty after just 2 minutes and the conditions and GHK’s pressure continued to hamper Accies play. Indeed at times, starved of possession, Accies were trying to play too much rugby when they got the ball and forays up the field often resulted in a heavy boot back down the field. It was after one of these heavy downfield kicks that Accies tried to play too much rugby and failed to clear their lines properly which resulted in a GHK player charging down the clearance kick and their prop gleefully grabbed the loose ball and fell over the line for the crucial opening try. 11 – 3
 
Accies had to chase the game into the worsening conditions and made a pretty good fist of it but so often a slip or a fumbled pass resulted in turnover ball which either got the boot, but also gave GHK’s pacy and enterprising back division plenty to work with and if truth be told, on a drier day more passes would’ve stuck and GHK’s second try would’ve come earlier than it did. As it was, it was doing the simple basics that unlocked the door for GHK. A No.8 pick from a scrum on Accies 10m line was driven hard at Accies defence finally being halted just short of the line, quickly recycled ball saw GHK’s scrum half dive over in the corner for the match clinching score. 16 – 3
 
There was still just enough time, about 10 minutes left, for Accies to claw their way back into the game if they scored quickly and they struck immediately. Good lineout ball on GHK’s 22m line was spun down the line and Robert Beattie – hungry for work - burst into the line in the centre position from his left wing berth, took the pass and pinned his ears back to reach the try line and it was game on again.
 
The difficult conversion from out wide into the teeth of the wind drifted short and wide and the gap was too wide to bridge as Accies now needed to score twice in the dying minutes to snatch the victory. As it was the game wound down and GHK emerged from the gloomy wet conditions the victors to do the double over Accies. 16 - 8

This article was posted on 27-Nov-2011, 21:10 by Hugh Barrow.