CQP vs Gala

Cartha QP v Gala 5th March 2022.

The game took place in lovely weather conditions. Graham Williamson, Callum Dickson and Marcus Goodwin were missing from the CQP pack through injury.

Gala opened their account with a converted penalty and later added a second. With just over a quarter of the game played Gala scored their first try. The conversion attempt hit the upright and bounced back leaving Gala with an eleven point lead at the break. David McCartney had gone off injured with just under thirty minutes played.

HT CQP 0 Gala 11

Shortly after the second half started Gala added a second try which they converted. CQP were competing well but tending to concede too many penalties. Gala were playing good controlled rugby a feature of which was solid kicking for touch when they considered this appropriate. Another penalty to Gala saw them maul over in the corner for try three which went unconverted to give them a twenty three point lead. CQP however were continuing to compete and following a maul in the right hand corner Grant Harman got over for a try which Wayne Burrows converted with the aid of the right hand upright to move the score to 23-7. With sixty five minutes on the clock CQP went down to fourteen players when Chris Elliot was yellow carded. With five minutes left to play Gala got their try bonus with an unconverted try to move the score to 30-7 where it stayed till the end.

With a game in hand to Heriots, Gala are potentially going to win this league. CQP now have to travel to Gala next Saturday. Given Gala’s title ambitions this will be a difficult trip but CQP made it hard for Gala to get their four try bonus today and if they repeat the quality of their tackling and avoid conceding so many penalties they should be able to make it hard for Gala. Gala had a slight edge in the set piece.

As has been said in earlier reports this is a young CQP squad. Hopefully they can avoid relegation but Watson’s home victory and Dundee’s home victory over Kelso have made this more difficult. We have four games in hand to both Muir and Watson’s and are seven points ahead of Muir and one behind Watson’s.

A feature of yesterday’s game was the presence of SRU touch judges which meant that Terry McConville got a rest from his usual flag waving duties.