Stew Mel vs Corstorphine, 19/10/02

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville team for Saturday's game with Corstorphine, 3 pm kick off at Inverleith, is:

The team shows four changes to the one which beat Edinburgh Accies last Saturday, with three of them being positional. In the backs, Chris Bissett moves from the wing to stand off, Michael Elliott from stand off to full back and Mark Welch from full back to wing. These changes have been made to try and introduce a greater penetration out wide.

The only injury-enforced change is up front, where Daniel Smit's groin injury means a recall for fit again Stuart Clark.

On the bench, Mike Harper has returned from his sojourn to Australia and returns to the squad, as does fit again Fraser Pollock. Simon Attridge also returns to the bench.

Riggers' Review

A win's a win. That was the general feeling in the camp after this tussle with Corstorphine. We've played better and lost this season, so it was an important win to get. We're still in fourth place and winning is what we need to keep doing.

In the chat before the game, Al Christie recalled the time he spent down at Wigan Rugby League club during his first spell in charge at the club. In the tunnel at Central Park was a sign saying 'Success is 90% perspiration, 10% inspiration'. I don't think anyone can complain or criticise about the amount of effort the boys are putting in. The wee bit of inspiration has, however, not always been found in many of the games this season. Yesterday was another fine example of that.

It was a strangely listless first half. We found ourselves 16-5 down at the turn, mainly through errors we'd made. The team knew that, to win the game, we had to cut out these errors. Well, we won the game, but the error count remained high to the end. Thankfully, Fraser Pollock had his kicking boots on when he came on early in the second half. A five out of five return was deserved reward for his fine ball striking. For some reason, Fraser always seems to kick well when his brother, Grant 'LJ the Boot' Pollock, is watching. We may need to give LJ a season ticket!

I think yesterday was also another example of our good level of fitness. We had certainly run Corstorphine out of steam, but there was not enough time to take advantage of this. We also showed that, when we play at a high pace, we can be a good team. It needs to be the forwards who generate this pace, but, for the most part, we seem content to amble to lineouts and play at the opposition's pace. When we up it, we look dangerous. This has to be something we work on, especially in the coming weeks when the grounds are starting to get heavy.

Next Saturday sees the half way stage of the league season reached with an away trip to Dunfermline. They had a fine win yesterday, so will be confident of winning at home. We played Dunfermline in the cup last year, so we know what to expect. They certainly gave us a torrid time up front, and, if memory serves, they had a winger with genuine pace. We need to keep winning, and I'm sure we will.

Riggers

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