Rugby round-up
BEFORE his reappearance in a Bath shirt last week, Jeremy Guscott expressed concern that even in his single season of inactivity the game had changed.
Where is the relevance of this to Saturday's Preston Lodge Tens? Well, all the teams at Pennypit were playing an extended sevens rather than an abbreviated fifteens style. Even last year there were some pop-and-go forward passages and line out drives for tries.
One constant through this has been the Heriot's commitment to a sevens style whose smoothness so early in the season could only be admired. Add in the loss of Gordon Ross and Simon Taylor to the Reivers, the return of Tony Bradley to New Zealand, and the temporary displacement of Andrew Dall, Charlie Keenan and Gregor Lawson to Rome with the Scottish Students' side.
No wonder Heriot's coach Gareth Davies beamed as he watched his side beat Boroughmuir 21-7 to win for the third successive year.
''It's becoming a bit of a habit,'' he quipped. ''You can see we have strength in depth. We are going to have a good shot at the league championship. I hope that once again it is an omen.''
Boroughmuir, who had the smoother route to the final, could well have won.
They took the lead with a try from Tony Dowling converted by Calvin Howarth, but Heriot's got a bit of structure into their game and new lock recruit Craig Harrison touched down with Simon Bashford converting, to close the half.
Muir again took the initiative from the whistle, but the decisive moment arrived. Dowling lost the ball as he tried to ground for a try.
Heriot's went upfield and scored through Iain Stent. 'Muir were forced to chase the game and wily Stent intercepted for the killer. Bashford converted both.
Heriot's closest scrap came in the semi-final with Edinburgh Accies, who held them to 0-0 at half time. But early in the second half a clever loop by Bashford created space with Teague scoring. Phil Smith pulled back a try
for Accies and when it looked as
if only Bashford's excellent conversion might separate the
sides, Stent scored a late try to win 15-14. Results:
Round 1: Heriot's 28, Musselburgh 0; West of Scotland, 0 Currie 45; Preston Lodge 5, Edinburgh Accies 7; Stewart's Melville 27, East Kilbride 5; London Kiwis 17, Ross High 12 (aet); Preston Lodge A 0, Boroughmuir 45; Glasgow Hawks 35, Kirkcaldy 5; Murrayfield Wanderers 29, Haddington 14.
Round 2: Heriot's 37, Currie 0; Edinburgh Accies 12, S/M 5; London Kiwis 0, Boroughmuir 36; Hawks 12, Murrayfield Wands 19. Semi-finals: Heriot's 14, Edinburgh Accs 5; Boroughmuir 29, Murrayfield Wands 0. Final: Heriot's 21, Boroughmuir 7.
Heriot's: M Teague (D Arneil 15), I Stent, H Gilmour; S Bashford, R Lawson; J Bryce, J Taylor, M Welsh, T McVie, C Harrison.
Boroughmuir: M Murray, T Dowling, L Graham; C Howarth, C Cusiter; A Green, D Cunningham, A Penman, A White, A Satchwell, R Muir.
Scorers: Heriot's: tries - Harrison, Teague, Stent; cons - Bashford 3. Boroughmuir: try - Dowling; con - Howarth.
n A try in injury time by Scotland A stand-off Mark McKenzie gave Glasgow Caledonians a 20-16 win over British Columbia, their third win a row in Vancouver which saw them lift the Coastal Cup.
The home side, which contained five Canadian internationals, opened the scoring with a penalty, but in the twelfth minute, Ian McInroy's break put James Craig away and the winger's inside pass put Ian Jardine in for the first try. Mckenzie converted, then 10 minutes later centre Jon Stuart's pass bounced off an opponent into Roland Reid's arms and the flanker tore away from inside his own half for a brilliant solo try.
BC were by no means out of it and with halftime approaching their hefty pack claimed the try which gave them a 13-12 lead.
An exchange of penalties was then the only scoring until the eighty second minute, when McKenzie's got his winning try.
''That was a very competative game,'' admitted Reds' chief executive David Jordan, ''and it is just the sort of game we needed to finish off our tour.
''BC were no pushover and I feel that the team handled it very well. Today's side was selected with Tuesday's match at Northampton and Saturday's game against Munster at Stirling very much in mind, so we have to be very satisfied with the result.''
''Overall, it has been an excellent week for the Reds,'' he contiunued, ''because as well as the results we have been able to give the 'club' players and those who had been out with long-term injuries full matches here and have been able to assess their development. It has been very positive with Lee Harrison, Colin Stewart, Craig Sangster and Matt McGrandles all playing well and with the likes of Craig Chalmers, Willie Anderson and Steve Griffiths back to fitness, we are now looking at a more complete squad.''
Team: R.Shepherd; J.Craig, J.Stuart, I.Jardine, I. McInroy; M.McKenzie, F.Stott; A.Watt, G.Scott, W.Anderson, D.Burns, C.Stewart (S.Griffiths 59), R.Reid, D.Macfadyen (G.Flockhart 54) J.Petrie.
Scorers: tries - Jardine, Reid, McKenzie; con - McKenzie; pen - McKenzie.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article