Currie 17 - 37 Stirling County: Stirling effort pays off

County opened the scoring inside two minutes and three tries in the opening eight minutes set the tone for this match. Both sides played with width, skill and no little passion even if tackling was an optional extra; some of the handling and running lines were breathtaking.

Currie lost their opening three league matches but won the next six and were hoping to keep pace with the league leaders at worst. They will find it difficult to recover from this disappointment with Gala stretching their lead at the top of the table.

County needed a win to guarantee them Premier A status after the mid-season split in the league, but if they played with this intensity, accuracy and ambition every week they would be challenging for the title instead of worrying about maintaining Premier One status. There wasn't a facet of the game which they didn't boss, especially the set scrums, with the 6-3 try count telling its own story. It was cold comfort to Currie's fans to know that they were short one third of their starting 15.

One passage of play offers just a taster of the relentless action on offer at Malleny Park. County cleared their lines with a high kick that Currie's Zimbabwean winger Barrie Mansfield collected inside his own half. The speedster made huge yards up the middle of the field until, several plays later, the move broke down with a knock-on. County had a scrum five metres from their own line. They picked and drove three or four times before flinging the ball wide left where fullback Ben Addison made a break with left winger Ross Aitken in support. The ball was eventually worked to the right winger, including a neat offload from prop Mike McDonald, and Graham Lindsay dived over in the right hand corner fully 95 metres up field from the original scrum. The rest of the action was scarcely any less frantic.

With the wind at their backs County scored four first half tries and if Lindsay's was the best, flyhalf Stuart Edwards finished off a classy move sparked by Brian Archibald and Stevie Swindall up the middle of the park. Unfortunately, Archibald failed with the first four conversions although he came good with the last two of the afternoon.

For their part Currie were a little less adventurous, scoring one of their two first half tries with a long series of pick and drives that eventually resulted in the classy flanker Michael Entwhistle crashing over. Currie lost the flanker before the break and missed him badly. Centre Andy McMahon grabbed the other touchdown and Currie would have had a third but for Aitken sprinting out of the defensive line to clobber man and ball.

If anyone expected the hectic pace of this game to drop after the break they were sorely disappointed. Entwhistle's replacement Malcolm Peacock raced over just minutes into the second 40 before County skipper Alex Moffat claimed his second try of the afternoon exactly two minutes later. Archibald finally found his range with the boot to add the conversion and the first penalty of the match to give his side a handy 13-point advantage with half an hour to play.

Ally Donaldson's exhortation, “we don't need to chase the game” was beginning to ring a little false and it didn't help the mood in the home camp any when fullback Jamie Forbes kicked a penalty dead when going for the corner. The match ended as it had started with a County try, this one going to scrumhalf Sean Kennedy after a patient build-up.

Scorers: Currie: Tries: McMahon, Entwhistle, Peacock. Con: Forbes. Pens: Name 2. Stirling County: Tries: Moffat 2, Aitken, Lindsay, Edwards, Kennedy. Cons: Archibald 2. Pen: Archibald.

Currie: Forbes, Mansfield, Fife, McMahon, Smith; Binikos, Luck; Cox, Scott, Merrilees, Adam, temple, Marcel, Entwhistle, Cairns.Subs: Elmslie, Scobie, Johnston, Peacock, Whittingham.

Stirling County: Addison, Lindsay, Gilmour, Archibald, Aitken; Edwards, Kennedy, McDonald, Moffat, Mountford, Deacons, McAlpine, Clarke, Boswell, Swindall. Subs: Graham, Hutton, Leishman, Robertson, Doneghan.

Referee: D Changleng.