County canter to cup victory

Feb 25 2009 by Alan Rennie, Stirling Observer Wednesday

WITH five divisions separating the sides, it would have been a banana skin of giant proportions had County lost this postponed cup-tie.

The home side showed enough spirit, however, to provide a much-needed workout for the County players who are very short of match practice with crucial matches in the offing.

Lenzie were given a helping hand in the opening minutes when County twice gave away silly penalties. The second was punished by centre Alan Ferguson’s long-range but wind-assisted kick.

The wind got even chillier for Stirling fans when County scorned a kickable penalty opportunity only to be penalised themselves in the preferred scrummage option.

And Lenzie could have doubled their lead when Wilba Davies was pinged for holding on to the ball after being tackled, However, this time Ferguson’s kick was wayward.

A slack Stirling line-out tap-back minutes later saw Lenzie forwards streaming towards the line but County’s defence was able to regroup.

The home side were without their try hero from the previous round win over Cambuslang, stand-off Dean Jones, who is injured. In his place at No 10 is the former Stirling County player Martin Yorston, whose father is Lenzie president this year. His boot kept the home forwards going forward.

As has been seen all season, the timing of County’s passing movements can be ponderously slow. And John Graham looked to have carried the ball a few steps too far with an overlap beckoning but he still managed to get his pass away and that opened up space for Ross Aitken to release Jonny Hope for County’s opening try in 22 minutes.

All of a sudden, County started to exploit those extra yards of pace they had throughout the team and Ben Addison had the Lenzie defence looking on in disbelief as he scorched away before feeding a scoring pass to Graham Lyndsay.

County were reduced to 14 men on the half-hour when a clever Yorston grubber kick found Jonny Hope isolated in defence and his failure to release after being tackled was deemed worthy of a yellow card.

However, that just acted as a further wake-up call for County and two more brilliant breaks by Addison again provided the eager-beaver Lyndsay the chances to complete his hat-trick of tries before half-time.

Leading 24-6, and with the wind in their favour after the turn, County were able to treat the second half as a training session, running through phases of possession.

Tries followed regularly for Hope, Archibald, Clarke and two for Ben Addison and County were also able to bring on promising youngsters John Hutton, a prop, and Scott Drummond, a fiery wee scrum-half, for their 1st XV debuts.

Scorers: Lenzie - pens - Ferguson 2. Stirling - tries - Hope 2, Lyndsay 3, Archibald, Addison 2, Clarke; convs - Arch 6.

Lenzie – C Hamilton; G Wilson, A Ferguson, R Queenan, C Scott; M Yorston, C Patterson; D Milano, C Derrick, S McNeish, D McLean, I Telford, J McAulay, A McManus and C Henderson. Reps – A Matier, R Saunders, D Scoular and M Hennessy.

Stirling County – J Hope; G Lyndsay, B Addison, AAuld, R Aitken; B Archibald, G Calder; W Davies, J Graham, G Mountford, B McFarlane, G Gilchrist, C Eadie, T Clarke and C Deacons. Reps – J Hutton, K Bryce and S Drummond (all used).

Referee – Graham Knox, Greenock.

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

County play their SHE Cup fifth round tie this weekend against up-and-coming Aberdeenshire club Ellon, who are in Premiership Division Three.

Ellon, who beat Trinity 13-3 on Saturday, have told Stirling fixture secretary Ted McCrae they would prefer to play on Friday night or early on Saturday lunchtime. See Friday’s Observer for final kick-off details and the latest team news.