Accies rue missed chances"
 
A trip to the Ayrshire riviera is always a tricky one for Accies as their record there is not great but the boys went down the coast feeling positive after a performance against GHK the previous week that gave them confidence that they could get a victory.
It was looking good for Accies as they dominated territory and possession for the first 20 minutes and Irvine's supporters were starting to get restless and bang on the 20 minute mark Accies opened the scoring with a try from Mike Walker. Good hands out wide and Mike was "hanging around" out wide to take the pass and run over for the opening score. The conversion drifted wide in the breeze (not the usual strong Maress breeze but strong enough to make goal kicking a tricky prospect as Stephen O'Donnell was to find out later.) 0 - 5
 
Accies' opening score seemed to spark Irvine into life as suddenly they were all power and pace, powerful runs from their No.8 and big centre caused Accies all sorts of problems all day and they opened their account on the 30 minute mark with a driving maul over the line from a 5m line out. 5 - 5
Irvine continued to build and bang on the 40 minute mark their welsh fullback sliced through Accies centres (a clever move taking the pass from their standoff as both centres fixed their opposite man) on the halfway line, he swerved to the left and had the gas to get the try in the left hand corner, converted, to hit halftime in the lead at 12 - 5.
 
Accies turned round and had the slight breeze behind them and were back in the zone as scrum half Ben Semple sneeked up the blindside for a try after 5 minutes to bring Accies to 12 - 10, the conversion drifting wide.
Irvine new that kicking for territory into the breeze was not going to pay dividends and stuck to the power running game that had clicked into gear in the second quarter of the first half and scored a try virtually out of nothing. Play was on the halfway line and had been spun out left, Irvine's winger somehow managed to wriggle out of two Accies tacklers and he was off and scored in the corner and Irvine had stretched their lead to 17 - 10.
Irvine had their tails up and the power running continued their powerful No.8 barrelled through 4 tackles on the halfway line and Irvine were away with former Hawk (sub Tony Wright) popping up to link the play to Irvine's No.7 who had just enough to get over the line as the cover tacklers came charging across. 22 - 10.
 
Time was now not on Accies side as there was only 10 minutes left and Accies needed two converted tries to get the win. Accies struck following some heavy pressure with a Stephen O'Donnell penalty to keep Accies in the hunt for at least a losing bonus point. 22 - 13.
With time running down Accies were still searching for tries but had to settle for a long range Stephen O'Donnell drop goal from fully 35 metres out to gain the losing bonus point.
 
Summary: tackling and goal kicking will probably be on the training agenda this week as three of Irvine's tries were a result of missed tackles and Accies, potentially, could've won this game if they'd got the kicks on offer, particularly in the first half when an Accies score of c.12 - 15 points would probably been too much for Irvine. Importantly, you can't lay the blame at the door of the goalkicker as Irvine's kicker faired no better but the boys need to pull together as a collective and get some go-forward into their game to give the backs a better opportunity to finish off the chances.

This article was posted on 15-Jan-2012, 20:10 by Hugh Barrow.