Hillfoots RFC vs Stew Mel, 14/12/02

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville FPRFC team to play Hillfoots RFC in the BT Cellnet Cup 3rd round at Tillicoultry on Saturday, 1.30 pm kick off, is:

The team shows a number of changes from last week, mainly due to unavailability. Our two policemen, Steven Reed and Steve Cully, are both on backshifts, meaning they are unavailable, while Fraser Pollock is at a wedding. This means recalls for Struan Samson and Scott Bowman with a debut for Alex Edmonstone at loosehead prop. Alex will be the fourth member of last year's School 1st XV to be blooded into the Senior XV on Saturday. Alex has also been involved in the FIRA Under 19 training squad, so is eager to take his chance and impress.

Riggers' Review

Well, we returned to winning ways last Saturday, and, in so doing, surpassed the stage we got to in the Cup last season, where opposition from the same division as Hillfoots accounted for us. There were no slip ups this time as the boys produced some excellent rugby to see off our spirited and stuffy opposition.

On arrival in Tillicoultry, we quickly located the pitch, and the boys were amazed to see that the Easter Road slope had been moved to Tillicoultry and increased by a couple of feet. The pitch probably sloped a good 12 feet from one end to the other, and, before the end of the game, our touch judge for the day could be seen gasping for air - or possibly just for a fag. Yes, the President stepped into the Touch Judging role on Saturday!

We decided that, if we won the toss, we would play up the slope in the first half, but first we awaited the arrival of the referee. Once he duly arrived, having travelled from 50 miles north of Inverness, the teams agreed to delay the kickoff by 15 minutes to allow him time to prepare himself, and also, we discovered, for him to dole out 5 minutes of instructions to both teams as how he was going to referee the game. Unfortunately, when he asked if we had any questions, Danny Smit managed to confuse him - and worry the new coaching team - with a question regarding when the ball was out of the scrum. Not really a question the No.8 should be asking a couple of minutes before kick off! To make matters worse, I soon discovered that he was as blind as a bat. On giving him the team sheet, he scrutinised it for a while before rummaging in his tracksuit pocket and pulling out his spectacles. That was better, he could see!

The game started at its normal 100 mph speed, as is typical with these cup ties, but the boys were playing well and creating chances. The ball wasn't quite sticking all the time, and also there was some blatant killing of the ball at breakdown by the home No. 7, who was rewarded for this performance by being named Hillfoots' Man of the Match. When we got the pace right, however, Hillfoots struggled to cope, and the first try, when it came, was a cracker, with Stuart Clark creating the space for Welchy to sprint through the defence to score under the posts.

As is our wont in these type of games, we decided to allow Hillfoots into the game, although, saying that, we assumed the whistle would go to stop play for the knock on the Hillfoots stand off had just committed. Obviously, 5 yards is not sufficient for it to be classed as a knock on! We went back up the other end, however, and stayed there for the remainder of the half, scoring another couple of tries through Stuart Clark and Welchy again. Scott Bowman kicked a penalty and half-time arrived with us 20-5 ahead and ready to play downhill.

The second half continued at a good pace, but started to get pretty scrappy in places. We got the score board ticking with a well struck Mike Elliott drop goal and then Mike scored a great long range try, which included a outrageous dummy. Mike, who is battling at the top of the try scoring chart with Twicki, was delighted. Twicki, who was on the receiving end of the dummy, described Mike in terms that can't even be used on this website! Sky Laurie was then driven over by the pack from a well worked lineout which came after a good number of penalties close to the Hillfoots line. At this stage, we were cantering 35-5 and, again, stepped off the gas somewhat and allowed Hillfoots two tries. The boys finished with a flourish and Welchy scored his hat trick try to finish off a good day.

It's back to league action next Saturday with a trip down to Neilson Park to play Haddington. After Saturday, when a number of first team regulars were unavailable or injured, the boys who came in certainly put their names forward for selection for next week. The coaches have a number of decisions to make when deliberating over the squad this week, and, with the 2nds narrowly going down 12-13 to Stirling County, a number of that team will also come into consideration.

Riggers

Stew Mel Stats

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