Gala vs Stew Mel, 16/9/06

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville FP RFC team to play Gala RFC at Netherdale on Saturday, kick off 3 pm, is:

It's nearly three years since we played at Netherdale, though, as you'll see from the previous match report, a few of the current squad also played in that game. I was there, too! Here's hoping for a rather more favourable result this time around - with the team we have out for Saturday, I am confident that that can be achieved.

The bus for Gala will leave Inverleith at noon on Saturday for any supporters who fancy joining us for the second serious road trip of the season.

Malky's Musings

Having won our first three league games of the season without performing well, it should not be too surprising that our unbeaten run came to an end on Saturday down in the Borders. With the exception of a few, we played poorly and, by the final whistle, we were convincingly beaten by a young and enterprising Gala team.

Our opponents controlled possession during much of the first half, and, although our lineout functioned well, we were too often turned over at the breakdown and we failed to assert any degree of control at the scrum. Gala scored after seven minutes when their left winger, Chris Lawson, collected a poor clearance kick and evaded three tacklers to touch down in the corner. We absorbed further pressure for the next ten minutes before breaking through the midfield and being awarded a penalty for offside inside the Gala 22. Richard Borthwick struck this home and the gap was narrowed to 5-3.

With 25 minutes on the clock, our opponents were awarded a penalty following a scrappy scrum and the lead reverted to 5 points. At this stage the Stew Mel support were willing their team to wake from its slumber, and, when Nicky Wood dropped a goal on 27 minutes, many would have felt that we were turning the corner. Unfortunately this was a false dawn. Gala scored their second try of the half with five minutes remaining till half time; this was, again, as a result of a bad clearance kick. We threatened the opposition line in the remaining minutes of the half, but, despite a good break from Stuart Goudie, our only reward was another penalty goal from Richard Borthwick (half time: Gala 13 – Stew Mel 9).

We failed to take a grip of the game after the break, and two well finished breakaway tries from Gala within the first ten minutes of the second half sealed our fate. The first was scored when an intelligent chip over our defence was collected and shipped to full back Fraser Thomson, who ran in down the far touch line. The second came when a well worked move released the left winger at pace, allowing him to touch down unopposed on the stand side. Borth narrowed the gap to 23-12 with a well taken penalty goal on 60 minutes, but our performance was really summed up when we conceded two further late tries through some sloppy tackling.

Following the game, and in the days since, there has been much bloodletting and analysis of our performance. We played badly, but I think we need to put this into perspective. We are a young team, and sometimes a lack of experience can be telling when a game starts to drift away from you. We will learn a lot from this result. It would also be remiss of me not to credit Gala with an outstanding performance, and sometimes you simply deserve to be beaten.

We will not play that badly again this season. If we do, I will be looking for the soon to be vacant managerial position at Heart of Midlothian.

Malky

Stew Mel Stats

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