Stirling County get win over Haddington

Nov 4 2009 by Donald Morton, Stirling Observer Wednesday

TWO tries in the last 10 minutes made this a more comfortable win for Stirling than it looks.

The second try gave them another valuable bonus point – and they know that win, lose or draw on Saturday at home to bottom club Kelso, they will be sitting top of the Scottish Hydro Electric Premiership Division Two at the halfway stage.

County kicked off with the wind and the famous Haddington slope to their advantage. Brian Archibald missed an early penalty but made amends shortly afterwards to give Stirling the lead.

Stirling then fell in the habit of gifting penalties and dropping passes to pass control of the game to Haddington.

And they paid for it when fullback Watt offloaded to Herkes to score the first try of the game. The conversion was missed to leave Haddington 5-3 ahead

Dividends

Struan Robertson replaced Jonny Clarke on 30 minutes and it paid instant dividends. From a scrum Danny Gilmour broke right to feed Glen Bryce who scored in the corner after a consultation between referee and touch judge to check the grounding of the ball. The conversion was missed but County were back in front.

Playing “up the hill” in the second half, Ross Aitken increased the lead after Archibald made the break. The conversion was missed.

Haddington refused to give up and O’Riordan bulldozed his way over for an unconverted try which brought the home side to within three points with 25 minutes left.

With the clock running down Bryce made a strong break which was taken on by Clarke who fed prop Garry Mountford in the outside centre channel. Garry made a good 30 metres before offloading from the tackle to a looping Clarke to score in the right corner. Archibald nailed the kick and County breathed a sigh of relief to be 20-10 clear.

Silly

Haddington still had time to at least get a bonus and seemed to be handed this by a silly push by Robertson on his opposite number, which resulted in a penalty decision being reversed. However, their kick for the corner went dead and from the resultant scrum Gordon McRorie broke blind and made the 22 metres line before Haddington’s scramble defence resulted in a County line out.

From this the ball went wide and Ben Addison entered the line at pace outside the two centres to break through the Haddington defence and score under the posts. Archibald took the extra two points and County had won 27-10 – with an unexpected bonus point.

John Graham Metals Man of the Match was Ben Addison (four votes) with Bruce MacFarlane (two votes) and Robbie Boswell (one vote) collecting points in the Player of the Season competition.

Stirling County: Addison, Bryce, Gilmour, Archibald, Aitken, Edwards, Kennedy, Hunter, Moffat, Mountford, MacFarlane, McMillan, Clarke, Boswell, Barsanti. Subs MacDonald, Graham, Robertson, McRorie

Haddington: Watt, Legget, Danladson, Herkes, Scott, Mark, Haenga, Orr, Harrison, Glass, Martin, Caulfield, Morrison, Spence, O’Riordan. Subs: Elliot, Waugh, Dykes.

STIRLING 2nd XV continued their winning form in the Reserve League National Division One with a storming 64-3 victory over Boroughmuir. Ten tries came from David Lyle (3), Fraser Lyle (2), Graeme Lindsay (2), Robbie McGowan, Ross Logan and Jonnie Hope. Hope also kicked five conversions and Robbie McGowan added two more. On Saturday they travel to Edinburgh Accies.

STIRLING 3rd Xv won 78-10 at Kirkcaldy in the Reserve League Caledonia Division One game. On Saturday they meet Hillfoots in a friendly at Bridgehaugh.

The U20s game was called off with both clubs struggling with numbers. This weeked Glasgow Hawks are due to visit Bridgehaugh.