Cambus hover over drop zone
13 December 2007-12-30
By Kenny Smith
CAMBUSLANG Rugby Club dropped into relegation trouble after losing 20-18 at
Edinburgh University on Saturday.
The students needed a victory to claw back some of the space on the local side,
and are now sitting behind Cambuslang on points difference - with the Coats Park ahead having conceded five points less.
Cambus were so close to pulling off their first away win of the season, until the
home side popped over a penalty with just 10 minutes left of the game.
Captain Andy Dick said: “With 15 minutes to go, I was convinced we were going
to win it. I’ve had that feeling a few times, when you don’t doubt you are going to won, and that made it all
the more painful when we couldn’t claw the two points back.
“We
really were playing most of the rugby, certainly trying to score tries, and we did our hardest, but they just defended very
well in the second half, kicked well, and kept us at bay, but they never looked like scoring.“
Cambus scored after a minute through the captain, with the hosts hitting back
three minutes later. Then Andy scored another try for Cambuslang, with Duncan Weir converting.However, the students scored
again, and with both their tries being converted, took a 14-12 lead. The sides traded penalties, giving the university a 17-15
lead.
During the early stages of the second half, Cambus scored again, to go 18-17
in front, but then with around 10 minutes left on the clock, the hosts scored another penalty to go 20-18 in front.Cambuslang
tried to pile on the pressure late on, with another two shots at goal going astray, one of them with literally the last kick
of the ball.
Andy said: “This is the first time this season we’ve really felt
we should have taken something from an away game.“It’s disappointing, because they are so close to us in the league,
and it now leaves us potentially in a bit of trouble going into the new year.“Traditionally, our season has never really
got going until after the new year, so hopefully we won’t over indulge too much during the festive season.”
This Saturday, Cambus host Preston Lodge, who lie two places and six points
ahead of them.When the sides met on October 6, Cambus took a real hammering, going down 77-26 - despite the local side being
19-15 ahead going in at half-time.Andy added: “Our next few games are going to be really important, starting this Saturday,
and then we have Annan away.“It’s going to be difficult, but we need to pick up points, especially at home, as
we don’t want to drop down to second bottom and find ourselves chasing everyone else.
”But we’ve picked up a few bonus points which has made a difference.”
Cambuslang 12 Falkirk
64
CAMBUS slumped to their third defeat in a row on Saturday as big-spending Falkirk romped to victory at Coats Park.
After losses to East Kilbride and Royal High Corstophine,
Cambuslang always knew it was going to be hard against one of the pre-season promotion favourites.
But despite the heavy loss on paper, the majority of the visitors’ points
came at the end of the game as Cambus legs tired. The local side got their points through tries from Stuart Male and captain
Andy Dick, who also added one conversion.
Andy said: “It probably wasn’t as bad as the score suggests, but there
was definitely an improvement on the week before.
“But again, we were up against a good side who
were fitter than us and were better drilled. That’s the benefit you get from a good pre-season.
Our problems are
there to be seen - quite often we’re getting guys who are being introduced to each other pretty much as they’re
going out on to the pitch.
“We had our game plan set out on Thursday night,
but then we had a call off on the Friday night, and then Duncan Weir was injured during the warm up, and we had to shake things
up again.
“We’re having to pull in guys that haven’t
been training, they aren’t quite fit, and don’t know what’s going on.
“They were a good side - we were 24-0 down at
half-time, but we got it back to 24-5, and it was 52-12 near the end, but they scored two tries right at the end because we
had so many tired legs.
“It was down to our fitness - they scored one
of their tries at the end, I ask the ref how long to go and he told me a minute, and they went up and scored again. We were
really struggling.
“I think the scoreline flattered them slightly
- they deserved to win it, but I wouldn’t have said by such a big margin.
“Our problem is we need to get our fitness level
up, and become a bit more streetwise.”
This Saturday, Cambus travel to face Hillfoots/Alloa,
who have won one of their opening fixtures, but lost 52-5 to Dalziel on Saturday.
Andy added: “We picked up a couple of injuries
on Saturday which could rule some of our guys out of the game.
“Hopefully some of them will clear up, but James
McLaren could be out for a couple of weeks, and the same goes for Dave Finnigan.
Cambuslang 3 East Kilbride 9
CAMBUSLANG
Rugby Club’s 2007-08 campaign started with a low-scoring home
loss on Saturday.
Local rivals East
Kilbride inflicted the damage with three penalties, with
Cambus replying through a three-pointer from captain Andy
Dick, in a game
where there was very little to write home about.
Cambus, fielding a hugely understrength side,
were unable to play much in
the way of good passing rugby, but the opposition rarely posed much in the way
of danger either.
Andy said: “The mood in the camp afterwards was that everyone was genuinely
quite
surprised at how we had done.
“We weren’t expecting to play badly, or anything like that, but our
preparation
had seen us play just the one game, and we’ve not had great numbers
along for pre-season training.
“We
had six or seven guys unavailable for Saturday’s game, so everyone
thought it was going to be a hard slog,
and really, we could have won it if we’d
had a bit of possession.
“That was what killed us off,
really - we didn’t get a good bit of set
piece play, and if we’d had some half-decent possession, we
could have done
something, but it was not much of a rugby spectacle for the spectators.
“East Kilbride
were 6-0 ahead, then I missed a penalty and scored another to
make it 6-3 at half time, and they scored again
in the second half.
“There were a lot of knock downs and turnovers - no one really got a decent
run.
“I
have to be honest and say I was expecting East Kilbride to be a lot
better, but they didn’t really throw much
at us.
“I think there will be better sides in the league this season, but we can
only improve.
“That
was effectively a warm up game for us, because of the lack of
preparation we’ve had for the season, and everyone
of us feels we can get better, and
our confidence will grow.”
Andy’s appearance was a surprise
in itself, having seriously injured his
ankle at the end of last season.
He said: “I’ve just been
in the last couple of weeks that I’ve started
training. Ten days before the first game, I started training
fully, and had two
sessions before the first game.
“I had it quite heavily strapped up, but it felt quite
good afterwards.”
Cambus hope to claim their first four points of the season with a trip to
the capital
on Saturday to face Royal High Corstorphine.
Andy said: “We should have a stronger side available for this
weekend, with
more depth, which can only help us.
“I think RHC always have a bit of pace about them.
We got good results
against them a couple of years ago when they were in premier three.
“We’ve got
to get into the habit of winning.
“Last year it was the opposite, and we were turning up and were happy enough
to get away without a heavy defeat, but now we’ve got to get into the habit
of going into games
not wanting anything less than four points.”
Cambus’ new coach Ryan Krause isn’t due to arrive
at the club until next
month, with things being kept ticking over by coaching staff Davie Knox and Tug
Wilson.
Andy
said: “We’ve only had one session with Ryan, but he won’t be with us
till October as he’s
still contracted to a post in London, and then he’ll be
up.
“But David Knox is a good coach, and
the boys have been impressed with him,
and we all know Tug, so things are going to take shape over the next few
weeks.“
