Thursday 16 October 2008

Losing Sucks

I don’t like watching Boroughmuir lose. That may seem an obvious thing to say, but it’s something I’ve become less and less used to over the past year and a bit. Indeed, the last time we lost at Meggetland was back in early 2007, so watching the boys capitulate against Heriot’s on Saturday was about as disappointed as I’ve been since we got forty points stuck on us by Aberdeen some two years ago.

Everything seemed to be going fine at half time, even Senior WebMonkey admitted that the game was ours for the taking. Confidence is such a fragile thing though, particularly in Boroughmuir hands, and glaring missed chances either side of the break appeared to shatter everything that had been built up in the previous few weeks.

As Heriot’s barged their way back into the match, ’Muir tried harder and harder to get their foothold back, throwing passes out of tackles and trying to run from everywhere. When it comes off, it looks spectacular, but the harder they tried against the Nails, the further and further they got from a coherent game.

That shouldn’t take away from Heriot’s performance in the second half. Their back row got in the faces of their Meggetland counterparts, and it’s very rare that such a unit will leave Meggetland thinking they’ve come out on top of the battle, such is the fearsome reputation that ’Muir’s loose forwards have built themselves.

This would also be a prudent time to issue my second apology in as many weeks. Before the match I was expressing an opinion that I felt Heriot’s winger David McCall wasn’t up to much if you avoided giving him any space. Remembering him from his Stewart’s Melville days, he was fast as lightning but didn’t have the guile to go with it.

Well, time spent with the Edinburgh bunch has certainly taught him a thing or two. There was one run in the first half when he appeared to have run out of space on five or six occasions, only to spot a gap and dance his way through it. It was a run that really deserved a try, but luckily Greg Cottrell wrapped himself round McCall’s legs and hung on for dear life.

Crowning his performance with two typical wingers’ scores was at very least what McCall deserved from the day, just as five points were exactly what Heriot’s deserved from their cross-city journey, if just for the ability they showed to take a chance when they found it. The only solace that can be taken from the defeat is that, the last time it happened this season, we bounced back in the very next game to score sixty-odd points. It’ll be very difficult to repeat that in Ayr, but a man can hope.

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