Gruesome Ayr fall to first loss Proud record goes at Millbrae
With Hallow’een upon us, Ayr came into this clash draped in such ghoulish garb that they were almost unrecognisable as the team which had gone eight straight games undefeated,
The fact that they had to contend with the absence of hooker Robbie Smith, injured lock Marshall Sykes, center Stafford McDowall and wing Robbie Nairn was no more than other sides who Ayr have recently put to the sword have had to contend with.
But even at that, their fecklessness was their undoing in the first half as they allowed Watsonians to race away to a lead which proved just too big to reel in.
On a spectacularly colourful autumn afternoon, it began to unravel for Ayr as early as the fifth minute after a sloppy mistake from the kick- off led to the visitors piling on the pressure before Edinburgh and Scotland wing, Damien Hoyland, put lock Charlie McKill over for the opening try which Lee Miller conveted with ease.
That served to make Ayr realise that the game had in fact commenced and when David Armstrong combined with Kyle Rowe, a try seemed certain but the wing lost his way and his support so one chance went a- begging as did another in the right- hand corner.
Watsonians celebrated the let- off by chuntering down the field to win a penalty which Miller nailed.
A 10- 0 deficit became 13- 0 with Miller’s second penalty and it took Ayr all of half an hour to get on the board with a Frazier Climo penalty but in that 30 minutes, they had had so little of the ball that apart from the opening flurry, they posed little threat to the Watsonians line.
Six minutes of the half remained when Climo turned a crafty wee break into a chance for prop Steven Longwell to set off on a bullocking charge which, when he realised that there was no support in hailing distance, resulted in using route one which meant crashing through full back Josh Rowlands on his way to the try.
Climo converted and the sense of relief which coursed through the Ayr support seemed to communicate itself to the players who were equally complacent ( and absent) as they sat back, allowing Rowlands and wing Rufus McLean to carve up their defence with ease and run in two tries in the five minutes before the break.
That was bad enough but the retiral of skipper and No. 8 Blair Macpherson with a sore looking bump was as ominous as the 25- 10 half- time scoreline was bewildering.
That was the end of the fancy, profligate stuff Ayr had indulged in ( when they could get the ball) during the first half and they set out their stall with a fair bit of aggression allowing Climo to shrug off a couple of tackles to score and convert.
Apart from a penalty in the 52nd minute, however, Ayr huffed and puffed but were unable to blow away a solid, disciplined and feisty Watsonians defence.
Perhaps the absence of Macpherson to pull things together in the pack, leaving Tommy Spinks and Longwell to do the grunt work with at times little support, was Ayr’s undoing. But in the final minutes, it was Watsonians who raised the siege, surged back downfield and came awfully close to snatching the bonus- point try which in turn would have denied Ayr even the single losing bonus point they gleaned.
The chips have been down before for Ayr this season and they have responded but when they were really up against it this time, there was a serious lack of experience to get them out of a hole.