Dalziel 26 - Perthshire 21

Apr 22 2011 by Greg Christison, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

Dalziel 26

Perthshire 21

AFTER 1838 minutes of league rugby, Perthshire’s survival in Premier 3 boiled down to the last three minutes of this exciting encounter at Motherwell.

Shire started at a furious pace and young Ross Angus, having a superb game, once again made one of his trade mark breaks and nearly knocked out a tackler with his strong running.

He then fed Erlend Oag and the flying centre finished with a flourish to score under the posts giving Shire the start they wanted. Steele added the two points with his conversion.

The joy was short lived though as Dalziel hoisted a speculative kick into Shire’s half and, as two players dithered over who was going to take it, Dalziel’s Mitchell nipped in to collect it and delivered an equalising try.

Shire’s misery was compounded a minute later when Erlend Oag had to leave the field injured and Shire lost their main try scorer.

Dalziel had some very fast runners and they continued to stretch the Shire defence until they managed to breach it again with 25 minutes played as Mitchell again used his pace to outstrip the attempted tackles.

Jack Steele had to leave the field next with a recurrence of last week’s injury and this meant that two forwards, Ross Angus and Simon Moffat were now playing in the backs. However, this seemed to galvanise the team as they realised that as matters stood they would be relegated.

The forwards applied tremendous pressure on the Dalziel eight and time and time again they pummelled the Dalziel line until eventually Shire’s Ryan Hood found a way through and scored a superb try on the stroke of half time. O’Connor slotted the conversion – Eagles were back in the fight.

It was all Dalziel in the second half but the Eagles defence put in a dogged shift and refused to yield. It looked to be all over in 55 minutes when Dom O’Connor attempted a chip out of defence and the big Dalziel number eight charged it down and cantered over for a killer try. Luckily for Shire, Simpson was having an off day with his boot and he missed the conversion.

Nobody can accuse this Shire team of not having heart and they dug deep to find more strength from within as they once again threw everything they had at Dalziel. They camped on the Dalziel line but Callum Mackinnon was yellow carded and down to 14 men the Shire faithful feared the worst.

However a minute later Dalziel found themselves down to 14 too as the intensity increased.

O’Connor slipped past his opposite number to streak out of defence followed by the Eagles pack and Anderson was held up just short as the forwards fought for the score that would save them.

Dalziel were reeling as they tried to hold back the black and white tide and in the end Adam Pattinson crowned a great personal season for himself by lunging over the try line and Shire were back in the hunt. O’Connor completed the seven points with a marvellous kick from a difficult angle.

All Shire had to do for the last five minutes was hold on and prevent Dalziel from scoring, but they were awarded a penalty 20 metres out and straight in front of the posts. Simpson lined up his kick as he prepared to consign Shire to National League 1 but the silence was deafening as he missed and Shire still had their bonus point.