CQP came into this match following a heavy away defeat at Goldenacre. Boroughmuir kicked off and the CQP receiver failed to gather the ball leading to Boroughmuir gaining possession. Shortly after this Muir took the lead from a converted penalty. After twenty two minutes Muir increased their lead to six points courtesy of another successful penalty. A minute later we’re awarded our 1st penalty. With twenty four minutes on the clock number 5 Grant Harman was sin binned. With CQP down to fourteen players Muir scored two tries both of which they converted to put them into a 20-0 lead. In the last play of the first half a further successful kick to Muir saw them go into the break with a twenty three point lead. A feature of the first half apart from an unacceptable number of penalties conceded mainly at the breakdown was a failure to secure line out ball with a number of overthrows to the tail. By contrast the Muir line out had operated very efficiently.

Shortly after the second half opened CQP finally got on the scoreboard following good play down the right hand side. The score was augmented by a first class conversion by Wayne Burrows to move the score to 23-7. Shortly after this CQP added a second score this time unconverted to reduce the the Muir lead to eleven points. The score moved to 26-12 after another successful Muir penalty but CQP added a third try to move the score to 26-19. Muir however added another converted try before CQP added a bonus point try which saw the score move to 31-26 in Muir’s favour. With only a couple of minutes left to play Muir scored another try to move the score to 36-26 thereby denying CQP what would have been on the back of their second half performance a deserved losing bonus point.

Final Score CQP 26-Boroughmuir 36.

There are a considerable number of new faces in this CQP squad and there is undoubtedly a lot of talent in the CQP ranks. It takes time however for a team with a significant number of new faces to knit together. Although this is our third successive defeat in a row there is no need to get downhearted. There is a long way to go in this league and over time there is every reason to believe that this group of players will start to find themselves on the winning side. From a spectating point of view what is required is patience as has been said Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Meantime our seconds backed up last weeks win v Marr with a win at New Anniesland v Accies.

It was pleasing to see that due to some hard graft by Dougie Russell our scoreboard was back in operation at least in relation to the score if not to the time. Observant spectators win have noted new solar panels on our clubhouse roof. Well done to the committee for securing this energy efficient add on.

This coming Saturday will see us travel to Dundee. Hopefully we will see an improvement in our line out and a reduction in the number of penalties conceded.