Stew Mel vs Dundee HSFP RFC, 17/1/04

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville FP RFC team to play Dundee HSFP RFC at Inverleith on Saturday, kick off 2 pm, is:

The team shows two changes from last Saturday's win in Selkirk, with both centres being ruled out. Graham Shiel hasn't recovered from the knock to the knee he received in the early stages of the Selkirk game and is replaced by Chris Bissett. Struan Samson has declared himself unavailable due to exam pressures at University, and he is replaced by available again Edinburgh Gunners Pro, Matt Dey.

On the bench, Nick Penny and Euan Clark are both fit again and return to the match day squad.

Riggers' Review

If dominating the first ten minutes of the game without taking our chances was worrying, then to concede two soft tries and go 14-0 down was time for near panic. That's what it felt like on the touchline, but, somewhere in the last few weeks, an inner strength and calm has developed within the team, and there was no need to panic. The best response would be to hit back with a couple of tries. These duly arrived through Tyronne and Fraser and, suddenly, we were playing some fantastic rugby. Tyronne was also pulled back from scoring under the posts by the referee and the only explanation could be that the referee hadn't a clue what was going on and thought something illegal had happened so blew his whistle. That happened quite a lot, but that's another story ....

The third try followed just on half-time when Ben took a fantastic ball at the back of the line out, then Steph peeled round and barged his way over the line. Our lead at half-time of 20-17 probably flattered the visitors, but, if you don't take all the chances with the boot, then you can never put teams away. The second half was nip and tuck for a long while as, every time we established a lead, it was pegged back by the boot of the Dundee full-back. There's no airs and graces with his kicking style. The ball might get kicked like it's wronged him in a previous life, but it flies straight and true every time.

At 23-23 anything could happen, but we then proceeded to score one of the best tries we've scored in this or many other seasons. It started with a double shuffle sidestep in the centre by Matt, who went past his bemused opposite man. Matt then linked on his outside, then, after the the ball had been kept alive through numerous hands, it was taken up close to the line through several surges and finally came back. It was spread back the other way and Andy Kelly hit a great line off Mike Elliott to take the ball and score to the left of the posts. You could tell by the grin on Andy's face that he enjoyed it. So did we! Bonus point secured, no matter what else happened.

Matt was then sin-binned for the criminal offence of turning the Dundee attacker in the tackle to win us the ball. Quite why he was penalised for this, let alone sin-binned, will remain a great mystery, but, thankfully, despite being put under pressure by Dundee, we held on and, in fact, increased our lead through a great concerted forward drive. Alex came up with the ball and he had a pretty big grin on his face, too. We all did by this stage. Our 50 point hammering at Mayfield had been well and truly exorcised.

After the despair of December, January is turning out to be something special. We've still got two games to play this month. Kirkcaldy away next week will be a tough match. If, however, we approach it with the right mindset, I'm pretty sure we should come back over the bridge to the Club's Burns Supper celebrating another win. If we can manage that, who knows what might happen.

Riggers

Stew Mel Stats

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