Gordonians rip Shire to pieces

Home side crushed in league opener

Perthshire ........ 17 Gordonians ...... 66

Few positives were being taken following Perthshire’s crushing home defeat on day one of the BT National League 3 season.

The Eagles were up against a strong Gordonians team who had virtually wrapped up victory within the first 20 minutes.

They chalked down four tries and the bonus point while playing a fast and powerful brand of rugby. Shire were looking very lacklustre.

The Perth side’s tackling was near non-existent, allowing the visitors plenty of space to exploit weaknesses.

Perhaps the only exception to this was Garry Coull who seemed to be the one person capable of standing up to the onslaught.

Shire did manage to raise a glimmer of hope when new recruit Zack Harris dummied his opposite number and Andrew Paxton streaked through the gap to score. Jonny Armitt converted.

But the joy was short lived as Dan Bowater suffered a bad ankle injury and had to be helped off the field.

Gordonians took full advantage and their forwards steam-rolled the home pack for hooker Williams to storm over and give his team a 31-7 half-time advantage.

To their credit, Shire came storming out of the blocks in the second half and once again Harris was the initiator. He fed Ryan Miller in space and the full-back produced a weaving 50 metre run for an impressive try.

It looked as though Shire were coming back into the game. But Gordonians were gifted another try.

Stand-off Mills was given an abundance of space before running through to score.

Gordonians were not committing men to the ruck while Shire were piling bodies in. That left huge gaps all over the pitch and with Aberdeen players running all sorts of angles with speed, the try bonanza continued.

The North Inch men had plenty of practice at kick-offs as the try count mounted and it was disheartening to see no Shire forwards offering any kind of pressure on the catcher.

Battling Miller did manage to produce some magic as he joined the line to give the Eagles their third try.

Despite being well beaten, there was always the outside chance of them gaining a four try bonus point.

This was not to be and with stand off Mills running the show and contributing 36 points to Gordonians 10 try romp, they emerged easy winners.

BT National League 3 results: BT Caledonia League Division 2 Midlands: BT Caledonia League Division 3 Midlands: