GHA 19 Dundee High 20

GHA have developed a habit which could have relegation implications if it continues: they have by one point in the last play of two successive home matches in BT National League Division 1. Last month it was an 11-10 defeat to Stewart’s Melville, and on Saturday it was an even more frustrating loss to Dundee.

Inside the first half-hour GHA had taken up a 19-3 lead. A four-try bonus loomed. But it was not to be: Dundee scored 20 points with three tries in the second half, the last of them with a precise, shallow kick from the goal posts tight in the corner of the right touch-in-goal line and the dead-ball line.

GHA are fourth from last in the league table just six points clear of last-place Aberdeen Grammar, though with a game in hand. Peebles and Kelso sandwich those two, and it is thus all the more important that GHA eek out a win in their next game. It’s another Braidholm match, and it’s against none other than the aforesaid Aberdeen.

Rob McKinstray, James Edgar and Ben Addison were GHA’s try-scorers in the first half-hour, all packaged into less than quarter of an hour. Peter Jericevich converted the first and the third.
Alan Auld made the initial thrust for the first try in 14 minutes. Phases of speedy recycling then allowed Andrew Grant Suttie to deliver the pass for the flanker to plough over to the left of the posts.

Also immediately Jericevich missed a penalty attempt from more than 40 metres out, but Edgar was soon on the scoresheet. Swift passing crossfield passing from a lineout on the right allowed the wing just enough space to run in from fully 30 metres.

Duncan Leese replied with a Dundee penalty goal in 24 minutes, but Addison soon beat the distance of Edgar’s run-in, the centre incepting almost on his own 10-metre line and beating all the chasers to score at the posts.

The different manner of those three tries gave hope for more to come. However, it was not to be. The game totally changed, and in the next 55 minutes GHA rarely hinted at more of what had been.

Gavin Hugan scored close-range tries for Dundee in 44 and 72 minutes. Leese converted the first of them.

After the second of those tries GHA found a way back to threatening the visitors’ 22mm, but a loose kick allowed Paddy Hamilton to thump the ball into touch almost 50 metres downfield. That was GHA’s last chance of a try bonus, and even victory was snatched away as the clock ‘in TV parlance’ clicked into the red numbers.

GHA: Chris Binnie; James Edgar, Ben Addison, Andrew Henderson, Alan Auld; Peter Jericevich, Andrew Gillman; Lyall Archer, Gordon Campbell, Michael Fox, Adam Barnett, Jonathan Lyons, Rob McKinstray, Andrew Grant Suttie, Ross Angus – Replacements: Erik Cavan, Scott Carson, Chris McGeough, Graeme Blackhall, Euan Greer.

Scorers: T – Addison, Edgar, McKinstray C – Jericevich (2)

Dundee High: Daniel Levison; Ross Lemon, Callum Bowie, Matt O’Sullivan, Andy Dymock; Duncan Leese, Henry Sampson; Neil Dymock, John Brady, Alan Brown, George Arnott, Connor Wood, Paddy Hamilton, Hamish Livingston, Gavin Hugan – Replacements: Ant Kent, Johnny Gibson, Ian Robertson, Pete Redmayne.

Scorers: T – Hugan (2), TBC C – Leese P – Leese

Referee: Duncan McClement.

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