Stew Mel vs Haddington, 5/10/02

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Squad

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

The team to face league leaders Haddington on Saturday shows one change in personnel, with Dougie Rycroft having forced his way into the starting team after his recent performances from off the bench. Stuart Clark will be out for the mandatory 21 day period after being concussed against Dundee last week, and that means that John Healy moves up to the second row.

In the backs there is a fairly major reshuffling of personnel. Whilst we are quite happy that we have our best seven backs on the pitch, the blend doesn't seem quite right, and, hopefully, with the reshuffle, we should start to finish off the numerous chances that we are creating.

On looking back at the video of last week's defeat at Dundee High, it shows that, whilst we dominated territory and possession for much of the game, the ruthlessness to put Dundee away was lacking. That will not be acceptable against high flying Haddington, who have made a great start to the season. Haddington of course, beat us twice last season, albeit narrowly, and Saturday gives us a chance to start to even out that score.

Riggers' Review

That's the third time we've played Haddington in the last two seasons. That's the third time they've narrowly beaten us. That's the third time Cliff Livingstone has had the decisive say. That's the third time against Haddington that the wind has been the biggest factor in deciding the outcome of the game. The next time we play them is December 21st. Let's hope we leave Neilson Park then with the points wrapped as an early Christmas present, because, after Saturday, we deserve it.

We started poorly on Saturday, and, after gifting Haddington 8 early points, the team went on to play some of the best rugby that we've seen from them this season. With ball in hand we looked dangerous, and it was only a matter of time before we crossed their line. We had got the scoreboard ticking along with a couple of penalties, but they were our 3rd & 4th attempts at goal. The two previous attempts really should have been converted, but Fraser didn't seem confident with his kicking. He passed the duties over to Borth after his first attempt, and, after an early sighter, he stepped into a routine which would bag him 10 points.

The reshuffled backline was also posing threats, and Welchy at full back was making some great breaks up the far touchline. One led to his first try and the second should have led to a try for Stu Thom. At 13-8, with a couple of minutes to go to half-time, I wasn't convinced that the lead we had would be big enough in the wind. However, when Mike Elliott looked up and sprinted through a gap in the Haddington defence to dot down under the crossbar, I started to feel a bit happier. Not confident, just happier.

At 20-8, the half-time team talk was based around solid defence and going through phases of play. We also talked about taking an extra half yard in defence as the referee seemed intent on penalising the defending team for offside whenever in doubt as to what decision to make. That affected both sides, and, with the wind as strong as it was, it certainly helped the team playing with it and made life very difficult for the defending team. Other than that, I thought the ref, Paul Burr of Hillhead/Jordanhill, had a pretty good game and is certainly one of the better referees that we come across in the season. We also knew that, with Cliff Livingstone in their ranks, Haddington would use the wind to assist them.

Unfortunately, we gave away an early score and then a penalty, which left the score perilously close at 20-16. We still had the lead, however, and the feeling was that the next score could be decisive. For the first time in the 2nd half we started to generate some phases and managed to create an opening for Stuart Bartwicki to score out wide. The extended lead was short lived, however, as Haddington came back quickly to score a third try and make the game a nail-biter at 25-23. The next score now was definitely going to be decisive, and should have come our way. Twicki made a break down the left wing, only to be taken out of the chase to the ball rather cynically by the Haddington full back. As this was the second time he had done that to Twicki, he was off to the sin bin and we were awarded a double penalty which took us to the Haddington 5 metre line.

What followed was, perhaps, the turning point in the game and is something I'm still struggling to comprehend. We elected to take a scrum 5 metres out. Haddington dropped a forward into the backs to cover for the sin binned full back. We hooked the ball back in the scrum and then, against 7 men, got wheeled and lost the ball to the Haddington pack, who couldn't believe their luck and hoofed the ball down the pitch. A couple of minutes of attrition later, and Haddington were awarded a penalty for offside on our 10 metre line. Despite having watched the incident live, and since on video a couple of times, it is still unclear as to what the penalty was for and who it was against. Certainly, in the position in which it was awarded, it couldn't have been for offside, although that was what was signaled. Up steps Cliff Livingstone to slot the three points, and we're left with a minute to play and are losing a game that was ours for the taking.

Despite winning the kick off and getting a couple of phases together, Haddington were intent on just killing the ball as there was little chance of us scoring a penalty from anywhere close to the 10 metre line. The penalty duly came, however, and Fraser decided that he would try and be dubbed Captain Fantastic again and lined up the kick. I never thought it had a chance, but, incredibly he managed to achieve the distance. The only problem was that, in putting so much into the kick, he pushed it slightly and it drifted about a foot right of the right hand post. So near to winning a game that we deserved to win, but still so far.

On reflection, it is hard to bear that we lost this encounter with Haddington. The one crumb of comfort we can take, however, is that they are a far better team this season than the one which beat us twice last year. They are a young team who are playing with confidence. They are not afraid to put width onto the ball and have genuine pace all round. It will be interesting to see how they go in their next 3 games against the teams placed 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the league, but, at this stage, they seem worthy of leading the league.

As for Stew/Mel, it's back to the basics again in training this week. We showed on Saturday how good we can be for maybe 30 minutes. We still have a tendency to make the wrong decisions at crucial times. We still maybe lack the composure that is necessary to put teams away when we are in the ascendancy. But we are by far the fittest team I've seen so far this season and we have now got the burning desire to really make somebody suffer. Edinburgh Accies at Raeburn Place on Saturday seems as good a place to start as any, and, when I remember what they did to us at Inverleith in our first game of 2002, well, let's just say we owe them one.

Riggers

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