Stirling County 31 - 27 West Of Scotland: Stirling 'settle down' to seal late win in tight dogfight with West

A TALE of two coaches tells a lot about what happened on the pitch as two determined teams slugged it out in a match that was probably even closer than the narrow scoreline suggests.

Stirling's Eddie Pollock came out on top but was raging at the end because he thought his team should have been out of sight long before the final, nail-biting minutes. "We gifted them too many points, put in too many slack tackles and made life hard for ourselves," he said. "We won't win if we play like that against many other teams in the league."

West's Keith Robertson was on the losing side but made a point of shaking the hand of every one of his disappointed players, telling them it is a matter of time before they mature as a team, calm down and start winning. "We sometimes try to score too quickly," he explained. "They are young and enthusiastic, that's the way they are, and they want to score all the time, but that's the problem. When we do go through the phases we can score, as we showed. So we've got to keep working on it."

Pre-match, the teams were locked together near the foot of the table on ten points, with two wins and three defeats each, but Stirling had scored more points and conceded fewer. These statistics were reflected in the pattern of this game, although as West edged into the lead with only nine minutes left it looked like they would upset the odds.

Stirling started briskly and efficiently, scrum-half Sean Kennedy taking off from the rear of a set scrum to dash 20 metres before feeding winger Graham Lindsay who took it as far as the line for flanker Tim Clarke to pick up on the follow through and crash over.

So far, so business-like, with impatient West hardly getting a look in until they did manage to go through the phases and get the ball to left winger Callum McKenzie to race in for a try that stand-off Connor Davis converted.

The lead did not last long, and Lindsay, having set up the first try, claimed the second one with a 30 metre sprint. Then the Stirling pack decided to keep the ball tight and score without the help of the backs, the try going to No 8 Craig Deacons.

Stand-off Stuart Edwards missed all three conversions, a failure that meant West never trailed by much. Even so the home team looked to have the measure of the visitors, having the lion's share of possession and territory without ever being in total control.

West stuck to their task well and big lock Mark Jenkinson charged upfield to set up a position from which Jonny Curteis, on for the injured centre Mark Horner, snatched a debut try. Davis' conversion brought West to within a single point at half time. Just after the interval West's captain Dave Young had a rush of blood and handled in a ruck under the nose of the referee.The yellow card, a third in three successive games, was inevitable and the penalty was Edwards' first successful kick of the day.

With West still down to 14 men, Deacons barged over beside the posts, Edwards converted, and Stirling were beginning to stretch away. But then the slack tackles that Pollock would later complain of were brought into the equation as Richard Dalgleish found an easy path through a retreating defence and his full-back Michael Sim was on his shoulder to take the scoring pass for the try.

The alarm bells for Stirling became increasingly shrill as Davis slotted the conversion and then added a penalty as at least three home defenders lost their bearings and were penalised for crossing on their own 22. The gap was back to a single point.

The unlikely comeback seemed to have been confirmed when, a few minutes later, the same defenders were caught offside in exactly the same place. To add a little drama to the occasion Davis was down receiving treatment for a leg injury as this happened and there was a delay before he stepped up and kicked his team ahead.

Stirling, to their credit, did not panic and used the remaining nine minutes wisely. They took the advice of the crowd to "settle down" and the forwards retained the ball as they moved remorselessly towards the danger area with West unable to do anything about it. Edwards had his eye in by now and two late penalties clinched it.

Scorers: Stirling: Tries: Clarke, Lindsay, Deacons 2. Cons: Edwards. Pens: Edwards 3. West of Scotland: Tries: McKenzie, Curteis, Sim. Cons: Davis 3. Pens: Davis 2.

Stirling: R McGowan; G Lindsay, D Gilmour, J King, M Doneghan; S Edwards, S Kennedy; M McDonald, A Moffat, G Mountford, T Edwards, G Gilchrist, C Eadie, T Clarke, C Deacons. Replacements: C Black, A Simpson, D Denton, B Archibald, B Addison.

West of Scotland: M Sim; K Matheson, R Dalgleish, M Horner, C McKenzie; C Davis, M McConnell; E McLaren, G Haswell, I Henderson, M Jenkinson, R McAlpine, D Young, A De St Croix, C Morrison. Replacements: C Marshall, D McKenna, J Walker, J Curteis, F Sinclair.

Referee: C Rudkin.