Stew Mel vs Jed-Forest, 1/9/07

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Squad

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

Our first team sheet of the season sees three new faces, with Craig Marshall starting at 10 after joining us from Boroughmuir.

On the bench, we have our new Kiwi No. 8, Liam Casey, along with Christy O'Donnell, who featured in the DSMC squad that lifted the Bell Lawrie Scottish Schools cup last January.

A full run down of player movements during the close season will appear on the website soon.

Supporters coming to watch the game tomorrow should be aware that the police are clamping down on illegal parking, and may lift any cars parked on Ferry Road during the game. So, if you can't get into the car park at Inverleith, it would be best to leave your car on Arboretum Road or East Fettes Avenue.

Hope to see a good crowd down at Invers tomorrow for the start of another great adventure.

Malky

Ben's Briefing

Early season blues, perhaps, or just over excitement and culpable failure by numbers 1-15 to put into practice what they had been practising over the last few months. I will plump for the latter, in the hope that the Stew Mel dugout has witnessed the bottom of the depths that we might plumb this season.

Early signs were that Jed had come with a team who knew the limits of their game plan and stuck to it with remorseless predictability. This was to be pitted against some new combinations in the home side, but there still a feeling among the crowd that the pack were ready to dominate at home and allow the backs some time and space in which to gain confidence and play the sort of rugby expected at Inverleith.

After 40 minutes of error ridden fare, Jed had pulled into a small but deserved lead, after taking their chances and capitalising on basic errors from the home team. The unfortunate loss of Stuart Ker to injury after about 20 minutes did little to aid the cause, and over complicating in our own 22 and then the loss of a scrum against the head led to Jed's points. It felt like déjà vu from last season, yet the hope remained that, if basic errors could be eradicated at half time, the team had enough in the locker to prevail over a Jed outfit that had shown its hand by looking to kick whatever useful possession it gained into the home side's half in the hope that errors would come.

The half stuttered to an end with both sides receiving yellow cards for perceived foul play, as the referee struggled to control the game. He might, in fact, have benefited from ignoring his touch judges' frequent interventions, which only served to heighten the tempers of the players. Having protracted stewards' enquiries every 10 minutes, the results of which failed to deter either side, did not add to the spectacle, and one has to conclude that the natural retribution of the game (which has served us well for decades) has more to offer than the collective nous of the officials - who no doubt get equally fed up with the failure of the players to try and play rugby rather than pursue petulant squabbles amongst themselves. Rant over.

The second half started with some better retention of possession from the home side, but, again, nothing that ever really threatened the Jed 22, due to our inability to retain possession for more than 3 or 4 phases. Sensing the weakness of the home team, Jed grew in confidence, and another Stew Mel error in our 22 turned over possession, resulting in a strong run from the Jed 12 and a try in the far corner. This seemed to spark some better play from Stew Mel, and, from the restart, our only real foray into Jed's 22 led to a try for Pete McLean, which he finished well. There wasn't to be a last gasp turnaround like the one that occurred in the corresponding match last season, however, and Jed extended their lead with a well struck drop goal to close out the game.

Bright points? Well, there were some. Both Duncans performed manfully in the front row, and Aidy carried some good ball- as did our latest NZ acquisition, Liam Casey. But there was simply not enough of the basics being performed well enough. We know we are a dangerous side when we produce multi phase rugby, but handling, continuity and application must improve if this is not to be another season amongst the also rans.

Ben Leathes

Stew Mel Stats

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