Stirling County 26 - 45 Currie: Untroubled Currie cruise past County

By MARTIN LAING
Published on 08/10/2012 02:41

County will have to improve in spades if they are to trouble the Welshmen from Neath on Saturday, a point acknowledged by head coach Graeme Young after losing successive matches.

SCORERS:

Stirling County – Tries: Archibald, Lamb. Cons: Archibald (2). Pens: Archibald (4).

Currie – Tries: Forbes (2), Johnstone, Entwistle, James. Cons: Forbes (4). Pens: Forbes (4).

“The thing about the British and Irish Cup, for us, is that it will make us better,” he said. “It will be a game of higher intensity and greater physicality, and we will have to lift ourselves to match that. Then we have to look to take that back to the league in two weeks.”

On this showing, Stirling face a daunting task in their first ever B&I Cup encounter, outplayed as they were by a Currie side whose showing thrilled their coach, Ally Donaldson. “I thought we played really well in the first half and possibly should have had more points on the board,” he said. “I was delighted with the performance, it was very satisfying. This is a hard place to come and win, and to do that scoring 45 points augurs well for us.”

Currie rarely looked in trouble, being ahead throughout the contest, thanks to first-half tries from Jamie Forbes, James Johnstone and Mike Entwistle, Forbes converting two and augmenting the score with two penalties. Stirling had countered with a try, conversion and three penalties from Brian Archibald.

Stirling improved after Forbes had stretched Currie’s lead following the restart, with Matt Lamb touching down, Archibald adding the extras and another penalty to narrow the gap to just two points. However, they couldn’t sustain the surge, especially after losing Mike McDonald and Lamb to yellow cards, and it was the visitors who romped away, with Forbes chipping over another kick, then bagging his second try, which he also converted. When Simeon James bounded over very late on, Forbes again on target, County’s goose was well and truly cooked.

Stirling County B Addison; G Lindsay, D Gilmour, B Archibald, M Lamb; S Edwards, S Kennedy; C Hutton, A Moffat, G Mountford, R Leishman, C Deacons, S Robertson, B Barsanti, R Boswell. Reps: M McDonald, R Kennedy, T Clarke, S Gillies, S McDonald.

Currie: J Forbes; A Hinds, J Johnstone, S James, J Houston; A Binikos, R Sneddon; J Cox, F Scott, F Watts, G Temple, J Gray, M Cairns, R Weston, M Entwistle. Reps: R Merilees, A Hamilton, S Marcell, M Peacock, J Deehan.