Dunfermline U16 Fall At The First Hurdle

It was clear from the outset, that this was a Falkirk side that was up for the game and took it to Dunfermline right from the kick off. On the 4th minute, Falkirk took a Dunfermline scrum against the head, and 2 minutes later, an intercept from a badly timed Dunfermline pass saw their tall, rangy centre get as far as the Dunfermline 5 metre line. This time the Dunfermline defence held firm, but three minutes later, Falkirk breached the Dunfermline defence to score between the posts, which was easily converted to give the home side a 7-0 lead. Falkirk continued to press Dunfermline and spent a considerable amount of time in Dunfy territory, assisted by an error strewn performance by the visitors, and some inconsistent refereeing. In the 17th minute, Dunfermline were awarded a penalty on the Falkirk 10 which was quickly taken by Ross Clark. However, as the referee was still speaking the Falkirk captain, the penalty had to be re-taken, giving the home side’s defence time to re-group. Three minutes later, Falkirk crossed the visitor’s line again after a quickly taken penalty while the referee was talking to the Dunfermline Captain. This time, there was no recall and Falkirk duly converted to give them a 14-0 lead. After this, the game was mainly played in the centre of the pitch, but in the 27th minute, a careless Dunfy pass resulted in an interception which saw Falkirk score a converted try to take their lead to 21-0. Three minutes later, Falkirk scored again tin the corner. This time the angle was too acute for the kicker and Falkirk went in at half time with a 26-0 lead.

It was a different Dunfermline side that came out for the second half, and the half time discussion had obviously worked. Falkirk kicked off, and the ball was run back at them by Angus Thomson with Lliam Quarm and Alex Foster in support. The ball was turned over at the ensuing ruck and allowed Falkirk to kick for touch. Dunfermline continued to run the ball, and were unlucky not to get points on the board in the 38th and 39th minutes when they were deemed to have knocked the ball on when they were in a scoring position in the Falkirk 22. Persistence was to pay off however when, in the 40th minute, Darroch McKeague went over in the corner to score an unconverted try to make the score 26-5. There then followed a period of play where neither side had the upper hand, and play flowed from 22 to 22 without either side looking like scoring. The deadlock was broken in the 58th minute when, after a fine run. Andy Pollock went over to score a try that was easily converted by Euan McLeod. Dunfermline started to turn the screw and during this period both sides had forced substitutions when Connor Simpkins and the Falkirk No 8 were yellow carded for some macho posturing that amounted to “Handbags at Dawn”! Dunfermline were to score again in the dying seconds of the game when Lliam Quarm stormed over to score for the visitors. This was the best of Dunfy’s tries which started off with a run at the defence by Angus Thomson who was brought down close to the line. After some excellent rucking, there was a good sequence of passes before the ball was fed to Quarm who scored an unconverted try in his own inimitable way. Final score Falkirk 26, Dunfermline 17.

The defeat was a bitter pill to swallow for Dunfermline as this was Falkirk’s first victory in 5 meetings. Dunfermline started very poorly, and had they played in the first half as they did in the second, they would have come away with the win. It was a case of too little, too late. There were some positive aspects to the performance in that the back row put in a hard shift running and tackling well, while the scrum noticeably improved with the introduction of JD in the second half. Although the long lay-off due to bad weather didn’t help, Dunfermline need to cut out the costly errors that cost them this game in order to salvage something from this season.