Edinburgh Accies vs Stew Mel, 12/10/02

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville FPRFC team to play Edinburgh Academicals on Saturday 12th October at Raeburn Place, 3 pm kick off, is:

The team shows three changes to the one which narrowly lost last weekend to Haddington. Two of the changes are injury enforced, with captain Fraser Pollock missing out due to a combination of thumb, knee, hamstring and calf ailments. Dougie Rycroft was concussed in last Saturday's encounter and he now sits out for the mandatory 21 day period. These two changes result in a recall for the fit again Struan Samson at inside centre, while Paul Keith's ribs have healed enough to let him return to the 2nd row. John Healy is therefore able to slot into his customary back row berth.

The other change sees Chris Bissett come onto the wing at the expense of Richard Borthwick. This is not a reflection on how Borth has been playing, but, without Fraser in the team, we feel like we need a front line kicker in the side and Chris will fill that role. This may seem harsh on Borth, who kicked 10 points last Saturday, but we feel Chris will offer greater consistency.

On the injury front, in addition to Fraser and Dougie, Fraser Deeming is awaiting a cartilage operation so will be out for some time and Stuart Clark will return next weekend after his concussion lay off. Gavin Sharp is to see a doctor about his knee problem, while Scott Bowman will be out for another couple of weeks, at least, with his broken toe. Murray Thomson will miss this weekend's action due to his hamstring injury picked up in the 2nd XV loss last weekend.

Riggers' Review

Team spirit? Got it. Determination? Got it. Good defence? Got it. Discipline? Very good. Creating chances? By the barrowload. Killer instinct? Somewhat lacking at present!!

It's not often you watch a game where one team hammers the other 10-7. Well, that happened at Raeburn Place on Saturday afternoon. Despite the appalling conditions, the team played some pretty good rugby and created numerous opportunities, but, as is the story of most of the games this season, we are lacking the killer instinct to put teams away. We should have scored at least another 6 tries on Saturday afternoon, but unforced errors or wrong decisions at crucial times meant that standing on the touchline for the last 10 minutes was a far more nerve wracking experience than it should have been.

The two tries we scored showed what we could do and were both scored by Stuart Bartwicki, who is proving to be the best and most clinical winger we have fielded so far this season. Despite his late start to the season due to spending the summer in the USA, Twicki is looking really sharp and seems to be enjoying himself out wide. He certainly has all the touches and a knack of scoring at the moment. The two tries should have been a platform to build on, but, unfortunately, the scores never materialised.

If we keep playing like we are, then soon some team is going to get a real hammering on the scoreboard. We are seven matches into the season and are in 4th place in the league. We know that would be good enough for promotion, but the team don't accept that as being good enough. We still want to win the league, and I believe we still can. Obviously we need to rely on Haddington losing a couple of games, but we are determined to get ourselves into a position where we can take advantage of any slip ups.

This Saturday sees Corstorphine visit Inverleith in what I reckon is the first league encounter between the two clubs. The two clubs have a long history and association, and there should be a great buzz around Inverleith. Corstorphine have won their last two league games and will come to Inverleith with a bit of confidence. I'm pretty sure they will be up for this game, and will look to take us on. If, however, we play with fire in our hearts and ice in the brain, I'm sure we'll come out winners.

I'll finish this week's review in an unusual way - praising a referee. Hayden Edwards refereed the game pretty well on Saturday, and is one of the best referees we've had in a while. On a day like Saturday, with the rain, slippy ball and soggy surface, he used common sense in his refereeing and allowed both teams to try and be positive. This resulted in a pretty open game, and, indeed, we were the only side to try and kick a penalty in 80 minutes of rugby. To be fair, Accies weren't really in our half often enough to have that option, but it's been a while since that has happened. According to today's 'Evening News' (where we were their star review from the weekend - colour photo included!) it took us 38 minutes to be penalised, which, again, is very good discipline.

Riggers

Stew Mel Stats

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