Corstorphine RFC vs Stew Mel, 18/1/03

• Click here to jump to Riggers' Review
• Click here to jump to Stew Mel Stats

Squad

The Stewart's Melville team for Saturday's game with Corstorphine RFC, 2.30 pm kick off at Union Park, is:

The squad remains as it would have been in the last couple of weeks for this crucial league encounter. We managed to get in some much needed match practice against a strong Boroughmuir team on Tuesday, and, despite the result, the exercise was very beneficial to both players and coaches.

The team for the Cup encounter on Tuesday evening at GHA will be selected after the weekend's match.

Riggers' Review

Our first visit to Union Park on league business ended with a bonus point win, but, for a while in the second half, it looked like the win we craved might elude us. When Mike Elliott went over for the fourth try near the end it, however, gave us the victory we craved, and, for the most part, deserved.

The first half started in great fashion, with Ally Maclay rampaging through the Corstorphine defence to set up Mike Elliott for the first try. Ally had another good game for us until he went off with a knock early in the second half. We might be biased down at Inverleith, but it is hard to fathom how he isn't included in the U19 squad. Hopefully, if he keeps producing the form he has shown of late, then the selectors will come to watch. It would be no more than he deserves.

The rest of the first half had us firmly on top. The scrum was solid, the lineout was good and the ruck ball we were winning was pretty clean. We weren't, however, actually committing much of their defence to the breakdown, which was allowing them to fan out and mark us man on man. Benzo scored an opportunist try to take us to 18-0, but, if we are honest, we should have been over 30 points ahead, with both Clarky and Ally knocking on with no one to beat. Stu Thom had also come close with a kick and chase effort, and we were really in the ascendancy.

The second half didn't get off to the best of starts, losing Benzo with a nasty looking thumb injury and Ally with a knock to his shoulder. This meant introductions for Nick and Danny, and, before they could get into the game, we had been clawed back to 18-14 by a Corstorphine outfit unrecognisable from the first half. We regained some composure and started getting back into the game. Alex Edmonstone was introduced for Koli to freshen things up and bring some 'Eckie Magic' to the proceedings. We were unsure quite what this meant, but, after the way he set up Clarky's try, we will know in the future. Magic indeed by the young future Captain of this club!

We conceded another try to bring the score to 26-19, and looked like we would miss out on the bonus point that we wanted. Mike Elliott decided that this wasn't going to be the case, however, and, revelling in the extra space playing at full back gives him, somehow managed to weave his way to the try line and underneath the posts. Job done. Bonus Point secured. Quality!

This win continues to leave our destiny in our own hands. With Accies comfortably beating West, the defining game should be the rearranged fixture with them, although we are still monitoring East Kilbride's progress. When the Accies game will take place will become clearer after our cup-tie on Tuesday evening against GHA. After such a long layoff from games, we are now going to play 3 in 8 days, which will go a long way to determining the outcome of the season. All the boys are desperate to play in every game going, and that is great news for the club. After the cup game, we will, of course, turn our attention to the visit of Dunfermline at the weekend. Once again, we come up against a side which has had a morale boosting victory over Ross High before they play us, however that just makes us all the more determined to succeed.

Riggers

Stew Mel Stats

Return to 1st XV Fixtures page