Musselburgh vs Stew Mel, 14/9/02

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville Team for Saturday's game with Musselburgh, 3 pm kick off at Stoneyhill, is:

The team has a more settled look about it this week, although we still make 4 changes from the one which played Ross High last weekend. In the backs, Fraser Deeming and Stuart Thom both return from injury and replace Gavin Sharp and Euan Clark.

Up front, Paul Keith returns in the second row, John Healy drops back to No.8 and last season's Player of the Year, Stewart Bennet, starts his first game of the season. Unavailable for the Ross High game, Steve Cully returns to the bench on Saturday. Ally Maclay and Sky Laurie drop out of the squad this week, but will both have big roles to play in the coming months. Ally is, in fact, suffering from shin splints at present and has been told by medics to rest for a couple of weeks.

On the injury front, hooker Simon Attridge is still struggling to shake off the dead leg picked up against East Kilbride and Steven Reed is waiting to see the Doctor regarding his knee/hamstring injury, whilst Murray Thomson returns to action in the 2nds' squad. On the positive side, Daniel Smit's clearance is finally through, although not in time for this week's game. He will play in the 2nd XV's opening league game in Division 1 of the 2nd XV leagues against Kirkcaldy at Beveridge Park.

Richard Borthwick, Stephen Dalgleish and Euan Clark have been picked to play for Edinburgh Under 19 on Sunday versus the Exiles. Ally Maclay would also have featured if not for injury.

Riggers' Review

When the fixture lists came out midway through the Summer, with two away trips to East Lothian in our first three games, we were slightly apprehensive, as we knew we needed a good start to our league campaign to try and secure one of the four promotion places. The fixtures also pitted us against a relegated team, a promoted team and a team that we've enjoyed a number of close battles with over the years, never taking into account our respective league standings. So, to come away from Stoneyhill with our third straight win is great news for the team and gives us a platform that can be built on.

On a perfect day for rugby, something we haven't been used to at Stoneyhill over the years, the team had a steely determination in their eyes to improve on the previous week's performance at Ross High. The forwards, especially, had to improve and they did this quite magnificently. For 50 minutes on Saturday the pack were destroying Musselburgh up front, taking three against the head, pushing the Musselburgh pack back at will and getting the Musselburgh team on the back foot. This nullified the Musselburgh tactics of trying to slow down or kill our ball, and we managed to score a couple of early tries, both through Nick Penny. One came from a charge down, the other came from a strike against the head.

So what happened after 50 minutes? Well, unfortunately, two of Musselburgh's front row got injured, and the game was reduced to uncontested scrums. This may have been a tactic, it may not have been. If it was, then you have to admire the presence of mind of the Musselburgh coaching staff, as the uncontested scrums brought Musselburgh right back into the game. They now had a platform that wasn't going back, and it also meant that the back row could concentrate on defence, first and foremost, instead of worrying about set piece possession. Musselburgh scored a try up the blindside to pull the score back to 16-8, but we were still in control of the game.

Our defence had been outstanding, both one on one and as a team; the discipline was much improved from the week before, with the extra half yard being taken in defence reducing the penalties for offside to one. The backs were moving the ball well, and the phase play was building. One slight criticism was that we played the game, for the first half of the second half, too deep in our own territory. For the remaining 20 minutes, we played the game in the Musselburgh half. We could easily have scored a couple of tries, but for some resolute Musselburgh defence and also some cynical killing off the ball. The only criticism that could be levelled at referee Ted Coutts, who had an excellent match, was that he never used the yellow cards in his possession. There were 3 or 4 occasions where killing the ball or other infringements needed to be sorted. 10 minutes in the sin bin for any of their back row would have been deserved. Unfortunately, the sin-binning never came, and it was down to Stuart Clark, from a peel round the front of a lineout, to secure the win.

At 26-8, the scoreline was probably a bit flattering to Musselburgh, but they had stuck in well. After Fraser Pollock's conversion, he was told they were playing two minutes of injury time. To their credit, the team decided to have a real go for the bonus point, but, when you start playing high risk rugby, you can give away soft scores, and, right at the death, a grubber kick was charged down and fell invitingly between the posts for a Musselburgh player to fall on. That brought the score to 26-15, and also the final whistle.

Afterwards, the mood, in contrast to the previous week, was upbeat. Job done. The news filtered through of the 2nd XV's great win at Kirkcaldy and also the 3rd XV's win over Inverleith's 1st XV. A good day all round for the club. So, after week 3, we are sitting fourth top of the league, unbeaten alongside West, Dundee HS and Haddington. Next Saturday sees West come through to Inverleith, so one of the unbeaten records will probably go. We have improved each week and will need to step up a gear again next weekend. Macca spent 3 hours on Saturday night poring over the video of the game, and has identified a number of areas for improvement. If this can be taken on board, then we should be in a position next Saturday to defeat West. Let's hope so.

Riggers

Stew Mel Stats

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