Killie Match Report
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“Ouch, ouch, ouch!”

We’re not allowed to use even redacted expeltives anymore lest we offend the finer sensibilities of certain self-appointed moral guardians of Scottish rugby who surf the net looking for naughty words these days, so those few from the nursery will have to do. For that was indeed a “sore” one!

And by “that”, we mean today’s trip down the M77 to see our pals at Bellisle for a league match that was eagerly awaited by both sides – by us to keep us in the hunt for 2nd place and by them to ease themselves into the middle of the table. And here’s a synopsis – we dominated the first half though they hung on, they won the second and punished us heavily in the final 10 mins to snatch a 26 – 23 win. An injustice? Probably not – 30 unforced errors, 6 lost line-outs 4 of which came in the last 10 are stats that tell their own story. Killie played for 80 mins, we played for 70 and even when we had the chance to control things in the last quarter, testosterone got the better of us and, put simply, we took the wrong decisions.

But if, dear reader, you want to know more, read on…………

We couldn’t have asked to get off a better start when after just moments of kick-off, we gained field position, Killie got a bit over-excited at the subsequent ruck and encroached to donate us a penalty which Seato duly despatched. 0 – 3 with supporters still arriving to take their seats in the stand.

And we continued to look lively, pressurising the Killie line with a series of good phase play but almost inevitably, we knocked on and they cleared. But the game was being played in the opposition’s half, Jamie Watson looked particularly lively with a couple of very useful line-breaks and the forwards recycled well. We went over, but were held up and the subsequent scrum saw Killie re-gain possession and clear their lines. Eventually they eeked their way up into our half but a midfield knock-on gave the opportunistic Ross the chance to hack on up the park – he did, recovered both his composure and the ball, and then went over for our first score. 0 – 8 then and suddenly there was a bit of confidence about our play.

Both sets of forwards then seemed to try to “have-a-go”, inelegantly battering each other in a series of quite rumbustious exchanges. The Killie pack blinked first but, funnily enough, that was to their advantage because when they decided enough was enough and it was their backs turn to have a go – they recycled, passed wide, and on 13 mins went over for their first score: with the conversion to follow, it was 7 – 8.

The next 10 minutes was full of lively play from us and, it has to be said, the Killie forwards whose hard work was compensating for their backs dropping the ball and loosing possession. We gained territory however through a couple of clever kicks from Seato and from a lineout 10m out the forwards seemed to have trundled over. But Ref French decided that he really wanted to give us an extra bite at the cherry and awarded us a penalty 5m out instead of the try. Everyone was a bit bemused at this but some quick thinking saw the ball pass through hands, reaching the Mighty H out wide: he offloaded to Classic and the bold boy nailed it down just inside the corner flag only for his celebration to be cut short for a forward pass decision. Harsh? Yes. Marginal? Yes. But, maturer and wiser heads agreed it was probably the right call by the ref.

From the resultant scrum, we continued to hammer at Killie’s line and recycled the ball no less than 14 times in a quite electric passage of play. But the Killie “D” remained resolute and the increasingly inevitable penalty against us let them clear their lines. The subsequent rough and tumble amongst the forwards led to Beaver winning a penalty at a messy breakdown and Seato promptly put us back 10m from their line. Killie won the lineout and their 10 promptly hammered the ball onto the halfway line but it was fielded by Ross who, through some quite imaginative “jiggery-pokery” managed to find himself in space, then kicked ahead to avoid the covering defence and recovered at the line to dive over. 7 – 13 then, and even though the conversion was missed, we were increasingly dominating proceedings.

An injury to Jamie meant Jamie came on (work that one out everyone!) and then, almost inexplicably (though probably ‘cos we couldn’t get re-orgainised quickly enough in our back-line), Killie exploited our necessary reshuffle and scored. We’d describe it, but it wasn’t pretty and they carved us open in the midfield. To make matters worse, with the conversion it was suddenly all Killie and we were 14 – 13 down with half-time fast approaching. Plus ca change!

Killie restarted proceedings in the second half but Loomsey quickly got us into position in their 22. We then stole the line-out and the self same boy who’d got us there showed the audacity of youth to try to storm over only to be held up by a scrambling defence of significantly larger personage than he. There then followed a series of rucks, mauls and attempts at open play without much really happening and then suddenly, as if from nowhere, Classic scored. Even after all the post-match analysis, nobody (other than he) is quite sure how he did it, but he did, and even with the “afters” he received over the line from his oppo, the scoreline read 14 – 20 (with the conversion that followed).

We could have, should have, would have…….. yes, we know we’ve said it before, but we should have moved on and really taken this game by the scruff of the neck and gone on to secure the points, a bonus point win even. But we didn’t – we let them back in and their 12 in particular, who waltzed through our line with a great solo effort and our defence bouncing off him on 55 minutes, realising we had no desire to “defend-in-a-line”: 21 – 20 then with the easy conversion that followed, everything was left to play for as we entered the final quarter.

Within a few minutes of the re-start, Classic and Gus combined well to take us into Killie’s 22, and subsequent forward drives took us within touching distance of the line. A ruck saw the ball recycled by us and passed along the line. With momentum of the game in our favour, 5 m from the line and an outside 2 on 1, any objective observer would think that we were odds on for a try, but an intervening hand from the Killie no.12 almost in front of the posts saw the ball hit the deck and the ref blew loudly. Now, nobody really expected a penalty try to us (though Steve Walsh has given them for far less!), but it seemed certain that a penalty and a yellow card would follow for the knockdown and that undoubtedly would have handed us the game’s momentum. But no, we got the penalty but inexplicably, the yellow did not follow, the knockdown not being, in the refs opinion we learned later in the bar, a “deliberate” one). Sensibly we took the 3 points from in front of the posts – why risk a kick to touch from the middle of the park? – and we were back in charge at 21 – 23. But we were left to rue what might have been.

Killie restarted and Smithy (on for Robertson minor) caught and charged forward like a bullock possessed into midfield, offloaded to the backs who promptly delivered us just short of the Killie 22. Cover defence stalled our progress but their infringement at the ruck gave us a penalty. We should then have hammered them back onto their 5m line with just 10mins to go, but instead of showing a degree of composure, we inexplicably charged at their defence in the heat of the moment, lost the ball in the subsequent contact point and they marched up field following a great breakout by their right wing which was only just stopped short by a veritable melee of our covering defence.

With the gloom fast setting in, we then gifted Killie a shot at goal after an offside at the scrum but it was missed – and that was possibly the worst thing that could have happened to us. For we, thinking the pressure was off, visibly dropped a couple of gears in the subsequent exchanges. Killie, in the moments left, came back at us hard and probed and pushed seeking a weakness: and they did indeed find a crack in our defence, and they went over for the decisive score with just a couple of minutes left on the clock. 26 – 23 then (the conversion was missed) and not long afterwards, if a tad early, the final whistle blew.

The volume of celebration coming from the Killie dressing room showed just how much they valued this win, and credit to them: to the victors, the spoils. We were, by contrast, quite unremarkably sanguine about the proceeding 80 minutes – we had our chances, we didn’t take them. Oh, how we wish our old mucker Davy Taylor has been wit us today’s touchline: he’d have understood and known exactly how to have salved your scribe’s wounded pride!

MOTM: for us, Ross was great when he was on the park – just unfortunately for us he wasn’t for the full 80 and looks doubtful for next week. Fabby worked outstandingly hard throughout, but this week MOTM goes to CalDal – he may only be 5’ nothing, but he never takes a backward step! A great performance wee man!

Ref Watch: Modelling kit supplier Macron’s quite hideous “worky” luminous orange, this weeks ref Tom French did a good job throughout, and even managed the game’s one slightly unsavoury incident well before it got out of control. He got the Killie “knock-down” incident wrong of that there is no question given the circumstances of the offence (i.e. we were odds-on to score), the position of the player in question and what he was undeniably (and quite understandably) trying to do i.e. stop a try being scored, but hey-ho, you win some, you lose some. His interpretation of the laws at the breakdown are as individualistic as that of his colleagues in our leagues but everyone in West 1 is used to this. Notwithstanding, his performance deserves a solid 7 / 10 overall – a good effort.



November

This article was posted on 1-Dec-2013, 22:11 by Hugh Barrow.