Perthshire rugby: Eagles have their wings clipped at home to Whitecraigs

Oct 8 2010 by Johnathon Menzies, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

Perthshire 3

Whitecraigs 22

EAST Renfrewshire side Whitecraigs arrived on the Fair City’s North Inch expecting a hard-fought encounter and Perthshire duly delivered.

The home side turned in a performance full of ferocious tackling and never let their opponents get into any sort of rhythm in the opening exchanges.

But a flurry of late tries from the visitors resulted in a disappointing defeat for the Eagles on their own patch.

Shire kicked-off in overcast conditions, and on a wet surface, which affected both side’s handling.

A fast start saw Shire take control of the game in the first fifteen minutes, and they exerted pressure on Whitecraigs at every available opportunity.

Long-distance kicking was their only respite. But, when one such clearance was run back at pace, the tone of the match was changed after a disgraceful high tackle.

Coaches were up in arms at several incidences that should have resulted in more than one sending off.

Unfortunately, the normally dependable Jack Steele missed what must go down as his simplest penalty of the campaign so far.

Whitecraigs then had a golden opportunity to open their account but, thankfully for the hosts, McDonald dropped the ball when over the line.

As the game became more open, a series of basic errors resulted in frequent stoppages.

On the half hour mark, Whitecraigs strangely attempted a drop goal and – after it drifted well wide – they decided to run the ball back from the Shire dead ball area.

Shortly after, Steele regained his composure to slot home a penalty, bringing the score to 3-3.

Early into second half, the referee, rightly, yellow carded a prop from each side for persistent niggling.

With Whyte off, and Captain Anderson injured along with Craig Assenti, home coaches were forced to result in a major reshuffle.

The Perthshire forwards took the ball over the line, but a try was denied as the referee was out of position and didn’t see the grounding.

This piece of luck seemed to galvanise the visitors, and Campbell crashed over the line after a period of good pressure.

Whitecraigs could now smell the victory, and were consistently pressing the home defence.

A fine move led to Blamire scoring and Moffat converted to make the score 15-3 to Whitecraigs.

With six minutes to go Moffat crashed through a number of Shire bodies, now running on empty, to score and converted to make the score 22-3.

Whitecraigs then went all-out for the bonus point try but credit to the home team – who had tackled and competed all day – they held out well to the final whistle.

Tomorrow sees both first and second XV’s travel to Musselburgh. The bus departs at noon.