Stew Mel vs Stirling County, 14/1/06

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Squad

The Stewart's Melville FP RFC team to play Stirling County at Inverleith on Saturday, kick off 2 pm, is:

There's, once again, a settled look about the squad as we aim to make it three wins in a row against Stirling County on Saturday.

Behind the scrum, Nicky Wood hasn't recovered from the hip and knee injuries that saw him subbed against Boroughmuir, and is replaced at Stand Off by Graham Shiel. Craig Joiner comes into the backline to replace Shiely at Inside Centre.

In the pack, Shaun McMurchy is suspended as a result of his sinbinning last week. Hotili therefore replaces Shaun at hooker and Andrew Statham starts in the front row. Stuart Clark has recovered from his bout of food poisoning and returns to the Second Row, Alex Clarke dropping to the bench, while the powerful back row is the same as last week.

We'll obviously be hoping for a win on Saturday, with home advantage and opponents who, like us, have struggled to adapt to life in the top flight this season. But Stirling need the points even more than we do, so this is another tough fixture for us; it's therefore essential that we have a large and noisy crowd to cheer us on. Please come down and play your part.

Nosebag's Notes

We are still fighting for survival.

Saturday saw the 1st XV put one over on fellow relegation fighters Stirling County at Inverleith for the first time in many seasons, in a very hard fought - if unspectacular - encounter. All week, Macca had been telling the side to believe in ourselves and go out and play together, and that is just what every player involved on Pitch 1 did today.

Right from the start, we made sure that we did not leave the opponents' half without points, and soon found ourselves 12-0 up after 35 minutes thanks to Borth's right peg and four successful penalties. In last season's very close encounter at Inverleith, the difference between the sides on the day was the impeccable kicking display from Stirling's full back Brian Archibald, slotting penalties with ease from within his own half. This time round, he must have left his kicking boots back at Bridgehaugh, and missed a couple of attempts in the first half. He did, however, manage two penalties, one either side of half time, making the score 12-6.

Hoti was then shown yellow by ref Ted Coutts for a little bit of handbags, which seemed to inspire the pack into producing one of the best ten minute spells of the season. The pack managed to dominate their opposite numbers in the loose for the full ten minutes, during which time there was not even a scrum, and we managed to steal six consecutive lineouts from our visitors. On 52 minutes, after some very impressive rucking, Captain Paul picked up the ball on Stirling's 22 and left their defence rooted to the spot with an audacious sidestep to notch our first try of the afternoon, which Borth converted to make it 17-6.

With us back to full strength, we pressed for a second try, and, after a number of phases camped on the Stirling line, Stuart Clark dived over from very close range near the right hand touchline. That put us 22-6 ahead, as Borth unfortunately missed the conversion.

Stirling knew that this was the last throw of the dice for them, and, to their credit, responded with some of their best play of the afternoon in the last ten minutes of the match. Having been camped on our line for a while and with no way through, the ball was spun wide and one of the County centres broke through the covering defence for a well worked and deserved try which Archibald converted.

Right on the stroke of full time, Borth landed his sixth successful kick of the afternoon to leave the final score 27-13 to Stewart's Melville. This result unfortunately leaves Stirling rooted at the bottom of the table and all but relegated, but teams will still find it very hard to go to Bridgehaugh and win. Stirling could still have a very big influence on the remaining two relegation spots in the league.

Every game gets bigger and bigger for us in the league, and our survival is still very much in our own hands. As Shiely said to the team in the post match huddle, we are a very young team that is improving game by game. If we keep this going for the rest of the season, through every training session and game, I am sure that we will still be playing Premier 1 rugby in season 2006-2007.

We again had a tremendous support on Saturday, and it was very nice to see so many old faces coming down and supporting the club and enjoying some pre-match hospitality. All in the squad really appreciate your continued support, and the volume of emails, texts and phone calls from former and current players round the world showing their support is quite humbling. We need you every week, so please keep coming back, and drag along as many friends and family as possible with you. Help us put a smile on Treasurer Don Rolls' face!

Next week sees us take a break from league action with a home Cup tie against Premier 2 outfit GHA with a 2 pm kickoff. Hope to see you all next week.

Many thanks,

Nosebag

Stew Mel Stats

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