Stew Mel vs Heriot's, 27/8/05

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville FP RFC team to play Heriot's in our first league game of the season at Inverleith on Saturday, kick off 3 pm, is:

Saturday marks our long awaited return to the top flight of Scottish club rugby; we could not have asked for a better fixture to mark this occasion than a home encounter with our neighbours from Goldenacre.

We start the league campaign following an excellent pre-season which leaves us full of confidence and enthusiasm for the challenge ahead. Our youthful squad has matured into a strong unit and we are pleased with the quality of the signings made over the summer. Three of these players, Andrew Easson, Craig Joiner and Richie Vernon, will see first team action on Saturday. The squad for the day is further bolstered by the inclusion of two Edinburgh Gunners, Matt Dey and Andrew Kelly.

Over the past ten years, many have questioned the resolve of Stewart’s Melville, with the 'Scotsman' and the 'Herald' even predicting relegation to the national leagues and the eventual disintegration of the club. During recent years we have proven many of these doubters wrong, and this season we look forward to making our mark on Premiership division one.

We hope that all those associated with the club will make an extra effort to create a large and supportive crowd at Inverleith on Saturday.

Malky

Malky's Musings

Saturday saw Premier 1 rugby return to Inverleith after a ten year
absence, and a large crowd was entertained by a cracking game. The stats will show that Heriot's took the maximum five points from the fixture, and that the winning margin was comfortable. For
long periods of the match this was, however, a balanced encounter, and, if it were not for a spell of five minutes after the break when we gifted the opposition 14 points, the eventual outcome may have been very different.

We started solidly, and, after absorbing some early pressure, a Richard Borthwick penalty goal gave us the lead. A soft score was then gifted to Heriot's when we failed to deal with a kick ahead. Soon after, the opposition scored a second try in the left corner following a well worked midfield move. Notably, both of these scores came after turnovers, and we were shown the importance of ball retention at this higher level. Borth scored a second penalty which was awarded following some excellent work by our new center Andrew Easson.

Then, on the stroke of half time, we brought ourselves right back into the game when some good phase play and handling resulted in Borth touching down for five points. The fullback went on to slot a tricky conversion which saw us take a 13–12 lead into the interval.

Unfortunately, we handed Heriot's the initiative immediately after the break, and two sloppy restarts cost us heavily. Heriot's scored two tries in quick succession following Stew Mel mistakes, and we never really recovered from this loss of momentum.

There were many positives to come from the game, not least the
collective effort of the pack at both scrums and lineouts. Two
players who were instrumental in this good work were our props, Andrew Statham and Steph De Beer. Andrew made a good league debut, showing that he can compete at this level, and Steph battled hard through the pain of an early chest injury. Also of note were the performances of young Ross Samson at scrum half, Andrew Easson in the center, Ross Rennie at flanker and Richard Borthwick at fullback. Borth scored all of our points on the
day, and did not miss a kick at goal.

Next weekend we travel to Mansfield Park to play Hawick. There is work to be done at training to sharpen up our ball retention and our restarts, however we have already proven to ourselves that we can compete at the top level. On Saturday, we must do this for the whole 80 minutes.

Finally, I would like to thank all of those who came down to support the club on the opening weekend. I hope that we see you at Inverleith many more times over the course of the season.

Malky

Stew Mel Stats

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