Garioch Wanted It More

Garioch 39 Mackie 7

The trip to Inverurie was made with some anticipation of success by the Mackie team despite last week’s disappointment at home. Still struggling with the absence of a few first choice starters due to the needs of the oil industry and injuries to key players, Mackie failed to live up to their early season promise and went down to an energetic Garioch side who out fought them and were generally quicker in their work.

Mackie did start more brightly and scored after 2 minutes with a simple try after a line break by Leadbetter and this was converted to show a 0-7 lead for the visitors. The game then settled into an even contest between the packs for 15 minutes before 2 unconverted tries in quich succession for Garioch, both overlaps on the right which exposed lazy defending by Mackie, 7-10. Indeed two more unconverted tries were added in similar fashion by the half-hour through slack defending to leave observers puzzled as to what was wrong with the Mackie team who had defended so well against Glenrothes only two weeks before. Worse was to come with a simple try near the posts right on half-time which was converted to leave us at the break with a score of Garioch 27 Mackie 7.

The pattern of the second half followed the first with individual contributions from some Mackie players but a lack of team cohesion most notably in the lineout where Mackie continually failed to hold onto the ball. As with last week there were several injuries to Mackie players forcing changes of personnel and it was a tough day for Mackie all round again.

Any flame of optimism at the start of the second half was quickly doused with a walk-in for Garioch after another missed tackle and with the conversion it made the score 34-7. While Mackie did begin to put their game together as the match wore on and did mount several useful attacks, they did not look sharp enough to make their possession count and it was no real surprise when Garioch added a final try on 60 minutes to leave the final score 39-7.

Mackie can have no complaints about the result and need to work on their defence line and tackle count to get back to winning ways next week at home to Ross Sutherland. The Mackie best player was young Iwan Kelly who kept his composure on a difficult day for his team.

Willie Craig