Gala v Cartha Queen's Park RFC

Injury stricken CQP suffer heavy defeat away to in form Gala.

The match took place on a fine bright day. The Gala all weather pitch looked superb will all lines clearly visible. At a pre game Seniors lunch the Gala president had made it clear to the large group attending the lunch that Gala were now actively targeting promotion. The CQP squad reflected probably one of the youngest group of players ever to wear a CQP top. Very few of those CQP would have played at Netherdale before.

The match got underway and Gala immediately showed their intentions by scoring a try close to the posts. The try was duly converted to give them a seven point lead. With fifteen minutes played CQP responded with a super try with the ball passing through several pairs of hands with Geebs getting the touchdown. The move had started with a chip by Wayne Burrows who successfully converted to level the score at seven apiece. With twenty five minutes on the clock CQP scored another excellent try with Geebs getting the final touchdown. The first try was scored to the left and the second to the right. Neither conversion was easy but Turkey slotted both. The game was being played at pace with Gala showing some fine skills. CQP for their part had to put in numerous tackles. The line out was proving a problem area. With half an hour played CQP went down to fourteen players when captain Mark Barrowman was sin binned for a scrummage infringement close to the CQP line. Gala took immediate advantage of the situation and scored a try from close range to level the score at 14 all. Just before the break Gala took the lead to leave the score at 21-14 to them.

The second half saw Gala increase their lead to 28-14 and with fifty four minutes on the clock CQP got a try back following a breakout from the back. Once more Geebs was involved putting a grubber kick into the Gala in goal area with Patrick O’Brian to the ball first. This score was not converted and the score moved to 35-19. From the side it was appreciated how much a fourth try would mean to CQP but Gala I were in no mood to play Santa Claus. Gala continued to play fast and well executed rugby. They were making very few mistakes and from the side it seemed clear that the constant Gala pressure was tiring the young CQP squad giving Gala ever more room to attack. Gala were now finding it easier to break through the CQP defence and more tries seemed inevitable. One of the CQP defenders Shammy caught the eye as one player who was tackling successfully. Before the end Gala playing some very attractive rugby had added five more tries. A feature of the score line was how successful Gala were at converting their scores. By the final whistle Gala had scored ten tries successfully converting it eight of them. Although the CQP squad had tired they never gave up and came very close when one of the forwards had a fine run and actually got over the Gala line but unfortunately he had two Gala players hanging on to him who prevented him from grounding the ball.

Final score Gala 66 CQP19.

As a result of their bonus point victory Gala now top this league. They still have an away game to play at Biggar who will be doing everything they can to knock them off top spot. Heriots are of course still in the mix.

CQP must now pick themselves up and hopefully look to have few players back from the injury list when they face Dundee HS under the lights at Dumbreck this Friday. They will be sore from this heavy defeat but Gala are a very good team and were highly motivated by the possibility of promotion. What came out of the Gala game was that as a squad CQP need to lift their fitness level. It is unlikely that any of the teams we have still to play will come close to the playing ability of the Gala team we faced yesterday so all is not lost,