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The Road to Murrayfield continues as the
Broughton bandwagon comes back from a first half de-railing to win
this enthralling Cup Tie 32-22 at Wardie.
Yet another Man of the Match performance
by No.8 Adam McFarlane, including one of the finest hand-offs seen at
Wardie in recent years, saw Broughton come back from a 22-05 first
half humping.
The format of the early rounds of the
Cup for this season as we know is regionalised so both teams used this
sparing session to test each other out prior to next week's league
clash at Halhill. Hardly the romance of the Cup some would say
as it can all get rather stale playing the same teams. One
Dunbar official commented after the game that he would have preferred
to have given the players a week off. Well, they'll have one on
the 9th December....
So, on with the game. First blood
went to Dunbar by way of a 3rd minute penalty. The referee,
who's decisions at times baffled both sidelines, adjudged Hart to be
in front of Arrandale's delicate chip through. 0-3.
Worse was to follow just minutes later
when the congestion in midfield caused Hart to run out of ideas and
his intended pass went directly to the long ginger haired winger who
ran in for perhaps his easiest try of the season. This was duly
converted by the fullback 0-10.
Broughton's cup run looked all but over
within 10 minutes as Broughton lost possession from the restart and
our ginger winger raced alongside his fellow winger to draw in
Bombhead and set up an overlap to go in under the posts for his second
try of the day. The conversion under the posts was an easy 2
points for the full back. So, 10 minutes on the clock and it's
Broughton 0 - 17 Dunbar!
Broughton tried valiantly to claw back
the early deficit with enterprising forward play but couldn't turn
pressure into points.
The flying winger, who's name escapes
your scribe, completed his hat-trick in the 25th minute when he
thwarted Bombhead's attempted chip kick clearance inside his own 22.
The winger, who would have struggled to get a rizla paper under his
feet as was the lack of need to jump to collect the ball, went over in
the corner which made the kick for his full back too difficult this
time. 0-22.
Broughton were thrown a lifeline on the
half-hour mark when McFarlane used his upper body strength and
new found pace to burst through some weak Dunbar tackling to get the
home side on the scoresheet. Arrandale contrived to hit the post with
his conversion attempt. 5-22 at half time.
The second half was 2 minutes old when
Dunbar were reduced temporarily to 14 men when their No.12 was sent to
the bin to cool down following a bout of dissent after an
infringement.
Broughton made good use of their
numerical advantage and within 3 minutes of punching up the park in
dogged fashion it looked like Nicolson had scored a legitimate try.
The referee after a bit of thought, declared that the big fellow had
been held up, and without the assistance of the Video Referee (the
telly was stolen and was sold in Spiers for 50 quid last Sunday!), a
scrum 5 was awarded.
From the scrum, Urqhuart
collected the ball and bounced his way to score a try which if
anything, was held-up but in light of the incorrect decision given
merely seconds before, the referee's long shrill of the whistle was
enough for the Broughton faithful to start believing that all was not
yet lost! Another kick at goal and a change of kicker.
Same result unfortunately as Hart failed to reach the uprights. 10-22.
Nicolson's name did make it onto
the score sheet just 8 minutes later. A rampaging maul down the
Wardie slope was guided by Nicolson at the rear and he broke off some
10 metres out to bundled over the line for a try. 15-22.
McFarlane's new found burst of pace
caused havoc for both sides a couple of minutes later. The
Dunbar defensive line were posted missing as the No.8 ran a full 25 -
30 metres unchallenged straight threw the middle of the park only to
be tackled midway inside the oppositions half. The Broughton
support players it appeared, were standing back applauding the work /
not believing their own eyes (delete as applicable) of their colleague
as the challenge came in! However, the match official pinged the
visitors for handling in the ruck and kicker number 3, Olly
Maddocks had the chance to close the gap to 4 points. His
kick was successfully slotted and with 25 minutes left on the clock,
things were starting to look up.
Cometh the hour, cometh the man.
That man was Kiwi Urqhuart who grabbed his second try of the
day. A legendary Broughton maul down the slope caused the
lighter Dunbar pack all sorts of problems and as it disintegrated,
Urqhuart bundled over for a try. Maddocks converted a
tricky kick for the extras and for the first time in the game,
Broughton were in front and the trip to Murrayfield was back on!
25-22.
Now, the aforementioned Dunbar winger,
with 3 tries under his belt must have thought at half-time, "Great
stuff, we are playing well, I'll be able to tell the burd about my
hat-trick tonight and I wonder how many tries I'll score next week".
Well, life can be so cruel at times dear reader.
Standing on his wide bearth defending
another wave of fierce Broughton attacking play, he looks up to see
Man of the Match McFarlane with the ball tucked under his arm,
steaming down the park like a juggernaut out of control. The
next thing the winger was looking up see was the clear Edinburgh sky
as he fell victim to one of the finest hand-off's seen in rugby for a
long time! All that was left for him to do was to run in for his
fourth try in 2 games under the uprights. 30-22. Maddocks
preserved his 100% record on the day with the extras. 32-22.
The young Dunbar outfit looked down and
out and despite trying to muster up a comeback, it wasn't to be and
the Comeback Kings march on to Murrayfield and await their National
League contemporaries in Round 3 which I understand will be drawn
midweek.
Next week, we travel to Halhill where
many a score will be settled no doubt and with the return of several
1st team regulars to the Dunbar starting line-up, it will be a very
tough game and not a lot will be read into the result of this game by
either side.
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