Grangemouth travelled to Perth last Saturday for their penultimate fixture in the regular season. With a host of players injured or unavailable the Stags made a total of 8 changes from the previous week including 2 positional switches. There were starts for Trew, Ferguson, Herron, Balfour, Clark and Hugh with positional changes for Jackson and Coyle. The home side made a strong start and opened the scoring on 5 minutes. A missed tackle allowed their centre to burst clear to the 22. When he was tackled the ball was quickly recycled and the winger beat the cover to run in for a converted score. A few minutes later Shire added a penalty when Grangemouth were caught offside. Gradually the Stags worked their way back into the game. Good continuity took play into the home 22. McNab continued the move before slipping the pass to Herron to run in from 20 metres. Coyle added the extras. As the game entered the second quarter Grangemouth took the lead. The ball was moved wide to Ferguson who burst through a couple of tackles before being hauled down on the 22. The ball was moved wide and Bell received the scoring pass to run in for the score. Coyle again slotted the conversion. The game turned however in the closing 8 minutes of the half. Firstly a knock on by the Stags just outside their 22 saw the home team move the ball wide to the left winger to beat the cover and score in the corner. Then straight from the kick off another missed tackle allowed the Perthshire player to run 40 metres before offloading to his support for a simple score. Then just on halftime a sweeping move created enough space for the winger to round the final defender for the score. HT Shire 29 Stags 14.
Perthshire were back on the attack at the start of the second half as they pinned the Stags in their 22. After several drives were halted on the line the home scrum half picked up to dive over from close range. On 50 minutes Perthshire increased their lead with another penalty. Grangemouth however fought back and collected their 3rd score on the hour mark. After a loose pass in their 22 Herron chased the defender to force a 5 metre scrum. A huge drive from the pack saw the home scrum pushed backwards and White had the simple task of picking up and scoring from 1 metre. Once again Coyle added the conversion. Soon after Trew intercepted and ran 40 metres before being tackled by the covering player. With 5 minutes to play the home side attacked from deep. The winger made ground before slipping the inside pass to the supporting player for an easy run in. In the last minute Balfour had a darting run to the 22. The ball was moved out to Stanley who passed back inside to Sloan to crash over for an unconverted score.
FT Shire 46 Stags 26.
This was a hard fought match and an improved performance by the Stags. They were disappointed to lose some soft scores especially at the end of the first half but there were lots of positives for the coaches to work on over the next few weeks. Ferguson proved a handful with ball in hand and was named man of the match . This week the 1s and 2s complete their regular season with away games against Dundee and Rosyth. Both games have 3pm kickoffs. The 1s then have a 2 week break before they face Highland in Inverness on 16 May