Peeblesshire News | Sport | Peebles hit 50-try mark

Thursday, 21st August, 2008

Published: Friday, 3rd February, 2006 14:26

Peebles hit 50-try mark

Peebles 17,

Livingston 7

Saturday’s defeat of a stuffy Livingston outfit may not have been Peebles’ most fluent performance of the season, but their second try notably took their league tally to 50 - and its scorer Callum Anderson’s to eight.

Meanwhile, top-scoring forward Trevor Keen had the homesters’ first in the opening minutes, taking his season’s total so far to five.

Since losing at Livingston in early October, Adam Clark’s men have won eight of their nine league fixtures, scoring an astounding 30 tries in their last five Premier games prior to Saturday’s contest.

Such free-scoring form, however, made a real anti-climax of the Livingston outcome, a 2-1 try count in Peebles’ favour — albeit that victory was achieved in the absence of four influential regulars, Conan Sharman, Calum Farmer, Iain Rodger and Peter Whelan.

“No we didn’t play our best,” admitted long-serving prop Colin Thatcher afterwards.

“It wasn’t an enjoyable game to play in at all. But the boys ground out a win.

“It was a game we’d have lost at the start of the season because the heads would have gone down in sheer frustration at opponents who got away with killing the ball and kept doing it to stop us playing rugby. It made the game very scrappy.

“But it was a good display from the young players in our backs.”

Colin continued: “We’ve got to be happy with the win though and — yes — we’re definitely pleased to get the four points.”

As winger Alan Smellie confirmed: “Their backs were so much up in our faces we didn’t have enough room to play the wide expansive game we like to play.”

With three sets of brothers — Clarks, Smellies and Andersons — in the starting line-up, an early Njord Maciver line-out catch on halfway, plus a controlled pack drive, was exactly repeated in the visitors 22 in the third minute.

The upshot was a clinically finished, counter by No. 6 Keen which Garry Dodds goaled with ease for a 7-0 Peebles’ lead.

Then, following No 8 Maciver’s blindside foray from the scrum base, Willie Aitken and Adam Clark (who both regularly featured in backs’ moves on Saturday) broke to release the runners.

Both wingers threatened on the left flank where No. 11 Smellie went within a whisker of scoring.

Back briefly came Livingston, but both Aitken and No. 7 Neil Cruikskank put in super hits — the latter on the visitors’ key back Craig Bolan — before a Donald Anderson clearance brought relief.

Soon after, a Sandy Smellie touchline take set hooker Neil Clark off on the charge.

From the ensuing kick through, the alert Scott McCormick blocked the attempted clearance. But the visitors managed to scramble the ball to safety .

Following a combined sweeping, handling move that included the entire Peebles’ back row plus both Andersons, the industrious Thatcher fed his skipper who featured twice near the enemy line (clearly the try Adam scored at Livingston in October had whetted his appetite for more on Saturday).

Instead, it was full back Dodds who profited from Referee Rudkin’s’ 30th-minute award by stroking over a penalty to increase the home advantage to 10-0.

But the visitors hit back instantly when a hack-through brought Bolan an opportunist try which the fly-half converted, to narrow Livingston’s halftime arrears to 7-10.

After the break, a protracted spell of scrappy play left the Gytes faithful neither joyful nor triumphant.

It was noted that the driven mauls from line-out ball - previously such an effective attacking ploy for Peebles - had suddenly and mysteriously stopped being so.

With Graeme McKinnon on for hooker Clark and winger Neil Hogarth for the ailing Craig Borthwick (A. Smellie switching to centre), it was Hogarth who would later benefit from his skipper’s piracy of Livingston line-out ball with a burst through the middle.

Maciver’s link from the left flank, saw the ball swiftly switched right by the backs — and their ubiquitous captain — before the intruding Dodds fed No.14 Anderson who ghosted through the remnants of the defence for a superb try at the posts. Dodds’ conversion put Peebles 17-7 in front after 66 minutes.

Next, from his fly half Anderson’s probing kick ahead, Bruce Hirstwood kept the Gytes men on the front foot with a thumping hit on his opposite number.

Neil Clark having replaced Aitken and with Ross Neilson on for Cruikshank, the increasing applomb of full back Dodds the longer the game went on typified Peebles’ general improvement.

But, a few brilliant flashes apart, it wasn’t pretty to watch.

Not that it deterred the irrepressible Njord Maciver from asking after the match: “Did you happen to notice that, in our recent cup-tie against Heriot’s, two of the hookers playing were named Keen and Mustard? I wonder how many people know that.”

Quite a few now Njord!

PEEBLES: G. Dodds, C. Anderson, B. Hirstwood and C. Borthwick (N. Hogarth 56), A. Smellie, D. Anderson and S. McCormick; C. Thatcher, N. Clark ((G. McKinnon 51), W. Aitken (N. Clark 69), A. Clark and S. Smellie, T. Keen, N. Maciver, N. Cruikshank (R. Neilson 69).

Unused Replacement: A. Brown.

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