Stew Mel vs Jed-Forest, 7/2/04

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville FP RFC team to play Jed-Forest RFC at Inverleith on Saturday, kick off 3 pm, is:

Three changes to the team for our last home league fixture of the season.

PC Ben Leathes is on duty at Tynecastle for the Hearts vs Celtic Cup tie, meaning a recall for veteran Nick Penny in the boilerhouse.

The other two changes are made with a forward glance to our own Cup tie in a couple of weeks' time. Andy Kelly is unavailable this Saturday, so Peter McLean gets to start at hooker. Andy, as a Pro player, isn't eligible to play in the Cup, anyway, so it's an ideal chance for Peter to get back into the routine.

In the backs, Fraser Rankine, after four substitute appearances, gets his first start in the outside centre berth, and a chance to make the position his for the Cup game. This situation arose because this weekend is Fraser Deeming's last at the Club as he will be off to Sandhurst in a couple of weeks to begin his Officer Training. Fraser has been an outstanding player for us over the last four seasons, and his contribution of 16 tries in his last 38 games shows the calibre of player we will be losing. Fraser remains in the squad and will get a run at some stage, but he wholeheartedly agreed that we have to look to the bigger picture and get units working together in advance of our trek up north.

Mark Welch also makes a welcome return to the squad, having missed most of the season with the knee injury picked up against Kelso in the second game of the season.

Riggers' Review

After the sun comes the rain! In conditions that made the Gala game the week before seem tropical, the Stewart’s Melville team were given a lesson in how to play with passion by their Jed-Forest counterparts. They wanted it more than we did and, in the end, got their just rewards. I’m sure the watching spy from Aberdeen Grammar will have made the return trek up north confident of Grammar’s progress to the next round.

It is a sign of the inexperience of our side that we are struggling to provide a consistent level of performance. Sure, we had won all our games in January, but we sneaked past Kirkcaldy after a great performance against Dundee. We lost against Kelso in December after beating Biggar and we did it again on Saturday after having beaten Gala. That is why this season is such a massive learning curve for the team. The boys need to learn and absorb what has happened to them again and take that forward to next season. If they do that, then I’m pretty sure we can improve sufficiently to make our goal of playing in Premier 1 a reality.

So we’ve played our final league game of the season at home, and, with only one game to play against West, we can still achieve our pre-season goal of a top four finish. I must thank groundsman Willie Purdie and his staff on behalf of the team for the magnificent job they did in getting the pitch into such good condition following the Gala game and Thursday’s monsoon. What a great place to play rugby.

Our focus now is on the Cup game, and I can assure you that the team will be up for that game. If we can get our level of performance right, get our defence working again and make the right tactical decisions, we will be in with a chance of an upset. If nothing else, it lets us test ourselves against one of the top teams in Premier 1 and will give us a guide on where we need to get to.

Riggers

Stew Mel Stats

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