Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
W/D taste defeat on long-awaited return
Waysiders Drumpellier hope a derby win at Uddingston on Saturday will wipe away the sting of a narrow 19-14 defeat in their Tennent’s West League 1 opener at home to Paisley.
While team manager Gerry Brankin wanted a win, and came close to achieving it, he says the performance provides a great deal of optimism as they head to Bothwell Castle Policies this weekend.
Brankin said: “It was good to be back playing, and the result was so close, with a try-scoring opportunity held up in the last play, which would have drawn us level.
“In the first 20 minutes we totally dominated play, and dominated the scrum throughout, but they had really good back-three and when they spun it out wide they stretched us a bit.
“It was a really good game, it was one of those that could have gone either way and a draw was probably a fair result, but they shaded it, they took their opportunities.
“There were some interesting refereeing decisions, but to be fair, you can’t blame the referee for us losing – we didn’t score, it was as simple as that.
“He was all over it, he was looking to give us the try, but he just couldn’t see it being grounded, so that’s it.”
Brankin added: “It was good to get back playing; the under-18s played before us, but unfortunately Loch Lomond only travelled with nine players, so they had to get a few bodies off of us and we just played a 12-a-side development match.
“From our perspective, it was really good getting back – we had a decent turn-out and a couple of new players have joined us.
“I can’t really fault the effort; everybody stepped up to the mark.
“We had the full complement of substitutes, but only three of them we could have played in that game, because the others were too inexperienced.”
Brankin says everybody at the club is now looking forward to locking horns with rivals Uddingston on Saturday, as they search for that first win.
He said: “This weekend is going to be a big one, it’s a local derby so we’re looking forward to that one.
“It’s great to be back playing again and we’ll hope to bounce back.
“I’m confident that we can – if we play the way we played for most of the game we can do well.
“We dominated the scrum, and while our line out was a bit off, the scrum was ideal, and up top a couple of the new players looked pretty good.
“I’m quite pleased with the way it went on Saturday – it was a good hard game and we just held our hands up.”