Injury hit CQP put up brave display at Braidholm but come away empty handed

GHA v CARTHA QUEENSPARK SAT 1stSep 2018

This local derby match was played in front of a large crowd.

The CQP team featured four new players playing their first league game for CQP. The first half which ended 12-10 to CQP was fairly even. GHA opened the scoring with a converted penalty. This had been preceded two minutes earlier by what seemed a serious injury to debutante CQP scrum half Chris Yuill who had to leave the field. Jacob Adamson moved in from the wing and Alistair Paterson came on as a replacement. With twenty two minutes on the clock CQP took the lead when Graeme Docherty broke out of defence on the left side and made good ground before passing to Ryan Flett who touched down in the corner. The try was not converted but CQP had a y5-3 lead which increased to 12-3 when Graeme again broke out of defence and ran half the length of the pitch before touching down beside the posts. Following their first try Ryan Flett had been injured when touching down and had had to leave the field. Just before half time GHA got over from close range and converted to leave the score at 12-10 in CQPs favour at the break. In addition to the other two injuries Mark Barrowman had sustained a blood injury to his head being replaced by debutante Maurice Adams.

It took GHA only six minutes of play in the second half to take the lead with a converted try and with three-quarters of the game played they moved the score to 22-12 with a third try. Only a few minutes after this saw Graeme Docherty gather the ball well inside his own half and sprint to the line reducing the deficit to three points. With less than ten minutes of play left GHA secured their victory with a fourth try to earn their try bonus. Two of GHAs tries came from crash ball. A feature of GHAs forward play was their readiness to put two or three players together to form an attacking wedge. Final score GHA 29 (5 points) CQP 19 (0 points.)

Over the eighty minutes GHA were probably the better team. CQP had difficulty in taking their own line out ball. In the tight there was not much in it. Defensively both teams did well but both teams let themselves down on occasion with some wayward passing. While this defeat was disappointing it has to seen against a background of a number of disruptive injuries. In addition CQP were playing away from
home against a team that finished in third place in the league last year. On the player front Graeme Docherty's performance was quite outstanding.

On now to a home game against Gala next Saturday.

As a footnote to this game apparently the referee went into the CQP dressing room after the match to apologise for getting a couple of his decisions wrong