Stew Mel vs Watsonians, 29/10/05

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Squad

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

Riggers

Malky's Musings

The omens prior to Saturday's match with Watsonians were not good: Edinburgh had recruited the services of our influential prop and captain Paul Wharakura; our prolific try scoring wing, Dave McCall, pulled up with a hamstring injury during the warm up; my employers were sponsoring the fixture; and the 'Herald' had tipped us to turn over our city rivals. I wish that I could report that we had turned in a strong performance in spite of these factors, however, barring the opening ten minutes, we looked a shadow of the team which had defeated Currie, Boroughmuir and Melrose in our past three home fixtures.

We started well, with the pack securing good possession, and our opponents handed us the initiative by conceding penalties through a series of breakdown infringements. Unfortunately, we failed to capitalise on our opportunities, with some indifferent handling letting Watsonians off the hook on more than one occasion. With around twelve minutes on the clock, we then gifted our visitors a try following a sloppy lineout turnover. During the next twenty minutes, 'Sonians took a grip of the game, scoring two further converted tries. Each of these scores had been preceded by a debatable refereeing decision, yet what was not in question was the quality of our opponents' finishing. We pushed hard to gain a foothold in the match prior to the break, though our only reward was a Sam Hendry penalty goal.

We showed some glimpses of quality after the restart and competed well during the third quarter of the game. During this period we scored two tries through wingers Richard Borthwick and Craig Joiner. In spite of these efforts, Watsonians continued to stretch and break our defence far too regularly, and we were sorely punished for missing first up tackles. We also suffered through the sin binning of Shaun McMurchy, who was deemed to have committed a professional foul when disrupting a driving maul close to our own line. The final stages of the match saw our visitors extend their lead, and, when the final whistle came, we had been well beaten.

The team will take a number of important lessons from Saturday's fixture, most notably the need to reduce our missed tackle count and to be more ruthless when securing possession at the breakdown area. The Watsonians back row was highly effective at slowing down our ball, and we must be more clinical in dealing with fringing players. Thankfully, alongside these lessons, there were also a number of positives to be taken from the game; most notably, we saw a solid performance from Andrew Easson at full back and a battling display by Alex Edmonstone, who deputised for Paul Wharakura at loose head prop. Competition for places within the starting lineup remains fierce, and it was excellent to see the second team record a comfortable victory against GHA. We have work to do on the training ground, but I know that this is a squad with a strong resolve and am certain that we will produce a much improved performance when we travel to Glasgow on Saturday.

Malky

Stew Mel Stats

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