Top dogs set for final fight at Murrayfield
THE two superpowers of this club season will meet in the BT Cup Final at Murrayfield on April 22 after Ayr and Melrose ran out comfortable winners in their respective semi-final matches on Saturday afternoon.
Melrose might have finished 30 points ahead of Stirling at The Greenyards, but they did not have it all their own way, especially after falling behind early on to a Logan Trotter try and two penalties from Ross Jones.
But they battled back to take a 19-11 lead into the break thanks to tries from Sam Pecqueur, Fraser Thomson and Russell Anderson, plus two conversions from Jason Baggott.
The hosts stretched clear during the second half through further touchdowns from Nick Beavon (twice), Nyle Godsmark and Ruaridh Knott, against a solitary score for the visitors from Adam Sinclair.
“They put us under a lot of pressure in the first 20 minutes and that gave us a lot to worry about,” said Melrose coach Rob Chrystie. “We made a lot of mistakes that allowed them to do that.
“But, as the game wore on, we were just a little more accurate and we kept the ball when there were opportunities. We had to be patient. The boys are happy but they know they can be better, which is a great position to be in.”
Melrose host Currie next week in the semi-finals of the BT Premiership play-offs, while this defeat spells the end of the line for Stirling County this season – prompting head coach David Adamson to reflect afterwards that his team’s undoing was fairly symptomatic of how the campaign as a whole had gone.
“We started really well and went 11-0 up,” he said. “The momentum was with us at that stage, but we conceded a try shortly after the kick-off when we didn’t exit properly. It’s always frustrating from a coaching point of view when you have worked really hard to get to that position and it’s just down to sloppy play. We knew we had to be at the top of our game. Unfortunately we weren’t.”
On the other side of the country, Ayr hosted west-coast rivals Glasgow Hawks in a clash bound to have an extra bite to it after it emerged during the build-up that visiting No.8 Tommy Spinks was moving to Millbrae next season.
Spinks was stripped of the Hawks captaincy as a consequence, although he kept his place in the side and justified that decision as one of only a few players in the visiting ranks to emerge from this contest with credit.
Spinks, who was eventually shown a yellow card during the final 10 minutes for pulling an opposition player down at a lineout (just a few moments after he had been warned for the same offence), battled hard in a losing cause when too many players around him were posted missing.
Ayr dominated the first half and raced into an 18-0 lead thanks to tries from Danny McCluskey and Grant Anderson, plus a conversion and two penalties from the excellent Frazier Climo.
Hawks rallied briefly on either side of half-time, but lacked the composure to really test Ayr’s well-drilled defence, and were restricted to a single Josh Henderson penalty. Climo then killed the game off as a contest when he slotted a penalty then converted his own try.
A late penalty try for Hawks after Ayr’s David Young was guilty of collapsing a driven lineout as it trundled over the white-wash provided little consolation to visiting head coach Finlay Gillies.
“We have no complaints today. We were second best to everything and you can’t beat Ayr without a lineout – if you can’t start a set play then you can’t execute anything. And we can’t continually look to Keir Gossman to step his way past six or seven people to get us out of trouble – we have to manufacture our own chances,” he said.
Gillies must take his side back to Millbrae next Saturday in the play-offs, and he says he draws confidence in the belief that his team has failed to really show what it is capable of in the three matches it has played against Ayr so far this season.
“They still don’t know what we are going to do because we really haven’t shown our hand yet.
“Ayr could defend one-up rugby all day and we are not going to break them down like that, so we have certain scenarios and certain patterns which we want to execute – but we can’t do that unless we start winning attacking lineouts,” he said.
Meanwhile, Murrayfield Wanderers will play Carrick in the final of the BT National Shield after they secured home victories over Gordonians and Hawick Harlequins, respectively. Blairgowrie defeated Strathendrick while Portobello beat Moray to book their places in the BT National Bowl final. SCOTLAND Under-18s were given a physically testing game against the national Under-19 side at Inverleith yesterday in preparation for what will be hard matches against Wales, Italy and England in next month’s international series in Cardiff.
In the end, the U19s were able to use their greater physical advantage to eke out a win but not without huge resistance from the younger Scotland side, whose ferocity in the tackle nullified the 19s’ attacking moves.
“It was good for our guys, particularly those who didn’t play against England earlier this month, to experience greater physicality,” said Ally Donaldson, the Scotland U18 head coach.
“We had to defend for long periods and we did that pretty well. We also learnt a bit more about other players,” added Donaldson.
Outstanding for the U18s were flanker Connor Boyle and inside centre Grant Hughes and there were eye-catching performances from back rows Tyler Thomas and Rory Darge, and second row Cammy Henderson.
The U18s did well to hold out against the U19s’ forwardorientated attacks and did even better to score with a try by Henderson and conversion by Mike Davidson for a 7-0 interval lead.
Then in the second half the greater physicality of the U19s told to give the older side tries by No.8 Dan Marek, prop James Wilson and scrum half Kareem Baretto with conversions from Will Hunt and Baretto to finish 19-7 winners.