Greenock Wanderers RFC 1XV vs HJRFC Men 1st XV

Recap

HILLS 5 POINTER AT FORT MATILDA

Greenock Wanderers 0 pts Hillhead Jordanhill 31 points

Given then incessant rain and  the south westerly breeze at Fort Matilda, this was a day for the fireside, but those dedicated rugby enthusiasts present  were treated to a National League 3 game full of endeavour.

Greenock should  certainly have troubled the score board in the first half.  With the wind at their backs and the dominant  scrummage, they should have been camped permanently in the visitors twenty two.  But they instead chose to move the ball by hand  from unpromising  situations  and found the Hills fringe and midfield defence difficult to penetrate.  For their part, Hills No 8, Davies- Clark tidied up well and stand off Rory Harte mixed his play up,  occasionally   kicking long but also choosing the best times to open up.

Captain Conor Ferguson, who had a fine all round game,   opened  the scoring, crashing over from a driven maul ; and tight head prop, Michael Degnan,  soon followed up with another close range try.   In between all of that, second rower, Blair Colvin, had erupted from a defensive  maul in his own half with ball in hand to power downfield, his charge being stopped only  by some desperate  Wanderers  defensive work.   Stand off Rory Harte was successful with  his two  conversions, leaving Hills 14-0 ahead at the break with the elements in the second  half in their favour.

Thanks to a much improved  lineout,  Hills monopolized  possession in the 3^rd quarter of the game and were constantly on the attack.  But the home defence held out well until Oscar Welsh, making a rare appearance on the right wing in the Hills 1^st XV, finished strongly after good work by Damien Genocchio on the blind side.    Then Rory Harte’s vision opened up the field totally when he saw Ruiri Taylor  standing unmarked on the Hills left wing.  A quick cross field punt and a very kind bounce, which eluded  the despairing home defence,  brought Hills 4^th try and bonus point.

At 24-0 Hills knew they had won and the final quarter of the game saw underfoot conditions worsen and Greenock come back into the game.     Try as hard as they might, Greenock had no luck in the finishing zone  as a mixture of forward passes and dropped balls,  allied to Hills tigerish defence,  shut the home team out.    The final act was with Hills,  when Blair Colvin refreshed his first half buffalo charge to run in unopposed  from  35 metres   to touch down between the posts,  Rory Harte converting.

Next up for Hills are Murrayfield Wanderers at home on Saturday January 15^th, 14.00 KO at Hughenden.     However even these days,  amateur rugby players do not take  too much time off.  S and C work continues on Monday nights at Scotstoun, 20.00 -21.00.