County ran ragged by rampant West

Oct 15 2008 by Alan Rennie, Stirling Observer Wednesday

IT’S going to be another long, hard season for County fans after this latest reverse which was as big a walloping as anyone wished to remember.

There’s still time to turn things around, however. Let’s not forget that, after seven games last season, County churned out one win, one draw and five defeats.

Losing by nine tries to nil means that it’s back to the drawing board yet again for coaches Ian Jardine and Jocky Bryce.

They rang the changes on Saturday after the crushing defeat through at Hawks. Cracks started to appear in the new-look side after 30 minutes of stern resistance and, by the closing quarter, County were being run ragged.

West benefited from having two professionals and an academy player at their disposal in loose head prop Jon Welsh, ex-County titan Richie Gray and the combative red-haired flanker Roddy Grant.

It seems bizarre that, for the past two weeks, Glasgow have been prepared to release pro players to clubs while Edinburgh have not.

And there’s no question that Welsh in particular bossed the forward exchanges on Saturday, just as Mikey Adamson had done for the Hawks’ back division the week before.

It’s an unfair anomaly that is going to be thrashed out by the Premiership administrators and the Edinburgh management this week, apparently.

However, there’s much more to County’s current malaise than that. West are also a fairly young side but they showed what can be done by hunting together in small packs while County’s players all too often became isolated.

Looking back to last season’s seventh match, which was the away defeat at Dundee, the big difference in my view between the sides is in the back row. There’s no shortage of effort from Colin Eadie, Kevin Bryce and Craig Deacons but they’re not anything like as effective a unit as Eadie, Tim Clarke and Justin Matheson.

Another blow for home fans came when Fijian Aca Ratuva came from the bench on Saturday but he didn’t last long at flanker, being led off with a painful shoulder injury.

County wings Aitken and Lyndsay at least got the ball in hand a few times on Saturday but whether that had anything to the new half-back combination of Alan Robertson and Robbie McGowan was hard to judge.

One thing’s for sure, County could do with a couple of hard-running guys in the backs like West’s outside centre David Young and right wing Andy Park who were a revelation.

Only Danny Gilmour and Graham Lyndsay looked capable of opening up West’s defence. It’ll take Robbie McGowan a while to settle into the furious tempo of life as a Division One stand-off and he had an unusually subdued game on Saturday.

The County front five battled manfully but the deck was stacked against them, especially with Mountford and Hunter unavailable.

It seems strange selecting a Stirling man of the match after such a trouncing but Craig Deacons again showed indomitable spirit from start to finish and that earned my vote. I wasn’t surprised to hear later that all seven votes went to Deacs for the John Graham (Metals) Ltd award.

HT score: 3-15. Scorers: Stirling - pen - Archibald. West - tries - G Fisken, Park 2, Perrett, McLaren 2, Davis, A Fisken, Duck. Convs - Horne 4.

Stirling County – B Archibald; G Lyndsay, J Hope, D Gilmour, R Aitken; R McGowan, A Robertson; R Logan, A Moffat, W Davies, B McFarlane, G Gilchrist, C Eadie, K Bryce and C Deacons. Reps – P Wilson, A Ratuva, A Simpson, D Jackson and J Graham (not used).

West of Scotland – P Horne; A Park, D Young, I Keith, S Malone; C Davis, C Duck; J Welsh, G Bulloch, E McLaren, G Perrett, R Gray, B Pirie, R Grant and G Fisken. Reps - D McKenna, S Carmichael, A Kennedy, M Sim and A Fisken.

Referee – Andrew McMenemy, Gala.

County make their first trip of the season down into the Borders this Saturday to play Melrose with a scheduled 3pm kick-off. See Friday’s edition for the latest team news.

Comedy music trio The Bald Eagles come to Bridgehaugh on Friday, October 24, with their fast-moving tribute to 50 years of popular music given the “tongue in cheek” treatment. Tickets priced £12, which includes a buffet, are available at the club.

Stirling County are grateful to main sponsors Simpson Donald and Ondeo Industrial Solutions.