A DAY TO REMEMBER AT BRAIDHOLM

GHA RFC MATCH 189: GHA RFC 83 – 0 DUNFERMLINE RFC 

2009/2010: Scottish Premiership Two

It was a grand day at Braidholm on Saturday. GHA bestowed life membership on a famous son, Euan Murray, the Scotland and Lions prop, who responded by presenting the club with a Lions jersey, and the day was round off with the first XV running in 13 tries without any reply from Dunfermline.

GHA made an early statement with three tries in the first nine minutes. The bonus point was in hand after 24 minutes, and by half-time GHA had scored two more and led 40-0. Andrew Rushforth had three of the tries. Andrew Gillman and Jamie Pinder notched two each. Jim Noonan kicked nine conversions as well as scoring a try. The others were by Ruairi O’Keefe, Gregor Jones, Andrew Kelly, Ryan Jenkins, and Patrick Hilley.

GHA took the impetus from the start. Pinder ran the ball back at the opposition from the kick-off, and in no time at all the home team were on the Dunfermline goal-line. Gillman, Niall Cassie, and Jenkins each had a go at the line before Noonan dummied and shimmied his way over. With barely two minutes gone, GHA were seven points up.

Four minutes later Noonan kicked across the field for O’Keefe, Pinder linked, and Jenkins drove over for his try. The making of that score was to prove to be GHA’s way forward for the remainder of the afternoon – move the ball wide, whether by hand or boot.

However, it was Dunfermline’s loose possession from a close-range defensive scrum that let Pinder in for GHA’s third try, and the bonus point seemed to have been tied up within the first quarter when Ross McClymont chased through from O’Keefe’s kick ahead. But the full back was recalled, ruled to have been offside, and he left the contest soon afterwards because of a pulled hamstring.

Hilley took over as replacement, and within five minutes he had scored the bonus-point try, finishing off on the right from swift crossfield passing after Gillman had set up the position on the left in the visitors’ 22. Hilley then provided the link for Rushforth’s first, and in added time before the interval Gillman completed a long-range attack from a turn-over in the home 22.

GHA’s second-half scoring began even more briskly than from the start of the match – three tries in six minutes. Noonan kicked to the left for Pinder’s second, Kelly brought up the half-century by ploughing in for his try after O’Keefe had been denied short of the line, and Gillman ran away on a scrummage blind side in his own half to make the Jones try.

Dunfermline suffered a yellow card for the illegal tackle on Gillman in that move. The scrum half was off the field to recover for less than five minutes. But GHA dipped into a relatively slack spell. In not much less than half an hour they scored just once, when Hilley latched on to a Noonan kick for Rushforth to run in from 45 metres.

However, with Dunfermline down to 14 men because of injuries, GHA finished off with the same rush as they had started the second half – three tries in five minutes. O’Keefe picked up loose ball in the visitors’ 22 to sprint in, Gillman broke away to score from within his own half, with no need to call on a five-man overlap. Noonan, seeking to maintain the pace, saved time by converting with a drop kick, and Rushforth closed the scoring with his third.

Source: Bill McMurtrie