Currie 21 - 39 Stirling County: Hughes’ try burst seals win for County

STIRLING County coach Graeme Young could not disguise his delight after seeing the Bridgehaugh side transform a three-point deficit five minutes from full time into a comfortable winning margin with a hat-trick of tries from winger Rory Hughes.

Young’s men had spent much of the afternoon on the back foot and the victory was built, to a large extent, on a gutsy defensive effort under unrelenting Currie pressure during the second half. However, the key difference between the sides proved to be Stirling’s ability to finish off their scoring opportunities.

Jamie Forbes and Brian Archibald landed a penalty apiece before the visitors struck twice on the counter-attack with tries by Tim Clarke and Robbie Boswell, the latter converted by Archibald, who again exchanged penalties with Forbes to leave Stirling 18-6 ahead at the interval.

Forbes slotted his third penalty and Chris Leck dotted down to haul the hosts back into the contest before further sustained pressure ended with Malcolm Peacock touching down and Forbes converting.

However, having been outplayed until that point, Stirling seized the initiative and Hughes sprinted over three times, with Archibald adding all three conversions to complete the victory.

“It was a massive game for us”, admitted Young. “We knew we had to get points out of this game. We threw everything at it. Before the game, we said we had to come off, look each other in the eye and say that we had given it everything we’d got. I’m really proud of the performance.”

Scorers: Currie – Tries: Leck, Peacock. Con: Forbes. Pens: Forbes (3). Stirling County – Tries: Clarke, Boswell, Hughes (3). Cons: Archibald (4). Pens: Archibald (2).

Currie: S James; A Hinds, J Johnstone, J Houston, M Peacock; J Forbes, C Leck; A Hamilton, R Merrilees, F Watts, G Temple, S Marcel, M Cairns, M Entwhistle, R Weston. Subs Used: B Elmslie, M Erskine, J Broadley.

Stirling County: J Hope; M Lamb, B Addison, B Archibald, R Hughes; S Edwards, S Kennedy; M McDonald, A Moffat, G Mountford, R Leishman, C Deacons, T Clarke, R Boswell, S Swindall. Subs Used: C Hutton, S Robertson, B Barsanti

Referee: L Linton.