Play fails to lighten the gloom

a grey cape on Saturday afternoon. Dumyat and King's Seat were dim,

misty ogres, and the Bridgehaugh game was afflicted by its brooding

background.

Stirling County promised much and achieved too little. Gala also

hinted that they had more in their armoury, but, like the weather, the

rugby had few glimpses of light before the visitors won and kept their

place among the five leaders in the first division of the McEwan's

national league.

Melrose, Jed-Forest, Boroughmuir, and Edinburgh Academicals, like

Gala, stayed up with the pace.

Even the only Bridgehaugh try was in keeping with the uninspiring

game. John Amos scored it in a pushover, though Gregor Townsend claimed

it as well. The referee credited it to the flanker.

David Bryson's tantalising garryowen off Derek Gilchrist's lineout

take had forced a five-metre scrum, and the scoring chance seemed to

have gone when Bryson was denied. Gala screwed Stirling's consequent

scrum, the ball squirted out as if from a punctured toothpaste tube, and

Amos pounced just before Townsend, taking Gala to 11-3 after 29 minutes.

Gala with less territorial advantage, inched to a 6-0 lead in 19

minutes. Townsend struck a drop goal from 35 metres after Amos had

plundered Stewart Hamilton's lineout tap, and Dods kicked the first of

his two penalty goals.

Calum MacDonald responded with a penalty goal after 24 minutes, but he

missed four others and Mark McKenzie was wide once. Dods, too, had a

strike-rate of less than 50% with two out of five, and though the

squandered goal points did not affect the result, the Stirling failures

were at a time -- late in the first half and on into the third quarter

-- when they needed a boost. County would have been 18-14 ahead after 58

minutes, and no-one can say how they would have reacted to that.

Instead, Gala stretched to an eight-point lead, not really safe

insurance, though enough for a victory that was deserved, if only for

rare flourishes by Townsend and Brian Swan and the sharpness which

marked Amos in broken play.

Townsend essayed the occasional cutting run, once scampering off a

scrum's open side to explore the narrower channel in the opposition

twenty-two, a thrust that all but created a try for Graham Shepherd.

Jimmy Turnbull and Amos were denied from the ensuing scrum-five, when a

try would have sealed victory at 19-6 with 10 minutes left.

Swan, aye ready, was both bailiff and poacher. He was Townsend's

constant support as well as twice turning Stirling with interceptions.

Amos, eager to make up for three weeks' rugby lost in suspension, was

the most influential of the game's loose forwards, as both predator and

link, and even Brian Ireland was frozen out by the Gala flanker. Rarely

have I seen ''Icy'' made to look so ordinary, and he as much as anyone

will look forward to David McVey's return to harness against Hawick in

five days' time.

Stirling were handicapped before the match with the loss of Malcolm

Norval because of flu, and Hamilton fought a lone battle in the lineout.

He did it with such success despite Gilchrist's highly promising game

that Stirling broke even on the touchline, but County had no other areas

of consolation even though Kevin McKenzie and Brian Robertson nicked the

game's only tight-head strike, thwarting Gala in the home twenty-two.

Not for nothing could McKenzie, profiled in the match programme, claim

''none'' against the question of whom he considered to be his hardest

opponent. He does not lack confidence even against international hookers

such as Ian Corcoran.

Stirling County -- K M Logan; A S M Turner, M McGrandles, I C Jardine,

C T MacDonald; M McKenzie, K G M Harper; J T Gibson, K D McKenzie, G B

Robertson, J S Hamilton, R Mountford, R McKillop, J Brough, B Ireland.

Gala -- M Dods; M Moncrieff, J Turnbull, B A J Swan, C Dalgleish; G P

J Townsend, D Bryson; G R Isaac, I Corcoran, H A Hunter, J Laing, D W A

Gilchrist, G Shepherd, N J Crooks, J P Amos.

Referee -- W W Calder (Selkirk).