London Scottish 32 - 0 Gala: Exiles exact British & Irish Cup revenge on Gala

By COLIN RENTON
Published on 21/01/2013 00:00

London Scottish produced a clinical performance to see off Gala in their concluding British & Irish Cup pool match and avenge their defeat against the Borderers earlier in the competition.

Scorers: London Scottish: Tries: Bright, Stevenson (3), Love. Cons: Love (2). Pen: Love.

The hosts had seen their hopes of reaching the quarter-finals dashed the previous weekend, but were keen to avoid bottom spot in their qualifying pool and achieved that objective in some style. With an eye to the resumption of the Premiership title race this weekend, Gala coach George Graham rested some of his frontline players, and their replacements found the going tough.

The hosts started briskly but had only a penalty by James Love to show for their efforts in the opening 18 minutes. However, the inevitable score came when skipper Mark Bright crashed over. By half-time, the try tally had reached three after Jamie Stevenson weaved his way through the Gala defence then latched onto a pinpoint cross kick from Phil Godman to claim his second score.

Love converted both then claimed try number four seven minutes into the second half after Godman sprinted from inside his own half and Jim Thompson continued the move before giving the scoring pass.

The hosts completed the scoring when Godman picked out Stevenson with another well judged kick and the scrum-half completed his hat-trick.

“We made a lot of silly errors,” admitted coach Graham. “I thought we were overawed in the first half. I wanted to have a look at certain individuals and I found out a lot more about them in the first half. I’m disappointed we got beat in the manner we did.”

But he added: “I’m quite happy where we are. This has been a good experience and we’ll take what we can from it.”

Man of the match Bright was particularly pleased to have prevented Gala from scoring. “To nil them is a pleasing factor. We said at half time we wanted to nil them, and to come away with that scoreline was pleasing,” he said.

London Scottish: J Thompson; J Love, O Grove, P Gidlow, G Mullen (R Bolt 34); D Mugford (P Godman 31), J Stevenson; M Irish (E Fry 40), H Allen (C McGrath 74), A MacKenzie (N Mayhew 55), P Spivey (A Karonias 51), T Hotson, B Russell, L Calder, M Bright.

Gala: G Young (L Millar 40); G Somerville, B Turner (C Auld 64), C Borthwick, C Robertson; A McLean, D Owenson (G Graham 40); M Christie (L Pettie 40), C Mackintosh (R Anderson 53), C Hogg (E McQuillin 40), O Palepoi, C Weir, C Keddie, S Cairns (T Weir 53), E Dods

Referee: G Morgan (WRU).

Attendance: 1,173