Eagles miss out on a champion’s spot

May 8 2009 by Les Stewart, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

PERTHSHIRE 7s squad upped their performance another notch last weekend when they were just pipped in the final by Premier 1-bound Dundee HSFP to earn runners-up medals in the Howe of Fife 7s tournament.

The Eagles could easily have been crowned champions but a couple of key injuries and some liberal interpretation of the rules by the Dundee team saw an exhausted Shire literally run out of fit players.

Perthshire started the tournament in tremendous form beating Montrose 77-0. Scoring 77 points in a 15-a-side match is a tremendous achievement and doing this in a seven-a-side match lasting 14 minutes is nothing short of miraculous.

Shire can be congratulated in doing so in such a sporting manner.

The reward for this was a tie against Premier 3 champions Kirkcaldy and as expected this was a very hard tie.

Shire's forward trio of Brown, Knight and Anderson were superb at winning the ball and Bloice and Matson made sure that none of this was wasted.

Their timing and distribution ensured that Oag and Assenti were given plenty space to use their immense speed and Erland Oag's two tries gave Shire a 14- 0 lead at half-time.

Kirkcaldy stormed back into the game and Shire released Barrie and Fay into the action and Craig Assenti's missile-like defending as sweeper made sure that Kirkcaldy's opportunities were kept to a minimum.

However, even this was not good enough to prevent Kirkcaldy taking the tie to extra-time, thanks to a couple of quick scores.

Both teams were tiring but it was Shire who won the sudden death, thanks to an Ali Anderson lung-bursting break and an offload to Ross Browne who stormed over for the winning try.

Shire drew home favourites Howe of Fife in the semi final and the National 1 champions were strongly fancied to win their own tournament.

Despite Shire's ups and downs this season, they have never failed on the big stage and this was no exception.

Erland Oag and Craig Assenti were the heroes as they grabbed a try each to silence the huge crowd and once again Assenti's tackling deprived Howe of any scores.

Wayne Matson made a superb job of controlling play and he will be a huge asset to Shire's bid for Premier 2 next season.

He grabbed a solo try in the second-half and Shire were on their way to a final spot.

Dundee HSFP were their opponents although Matson was unable to take part in the tie due to injury and the Shire supporters were shocked to see that Dundee had drafted in Kirkcaldy's former Samoan international player Quentin Sanft into their team, despite having one more player in their squad than Shire.

Dundee went into an early lead but a treble from Assenti and Oag took Shire into the lead at half-time and shocked the club from Premier 1.

Gav Bloice was having a brilliant tournament at scrum- half and when he too was carried off Shire had to resort to drafting in a Kirkcaldy player as they had run out of fit players.

However, their bravery was not enough to halt the fresher Dundee outfit and a couple of late tries gave them the cup.

Due to the cancellation of tomorrow's tournament at Kirkcaldy, they will have to wait until May 16 before taking part in the Glasgow 7s where they could meet Glasgow, Edinburgh, or even Newport Gwent Dragons.

Club members are reminded tickets are still available for the prize-giving and awards dinner on May 16. Contact Andy Elder.