As we approach the end of another month, lets continue our trip down memory lane and try to fill that void of Saturday club rugby.

On the fourth Saturday of November back in 2012, GHA welcomed Hillhead / Jordanhill to Braidholm in a crucial West Cup match. The home side needed to achieve a win against their higher league opposition to stand any chance of progressing to the knockout stages.

GHA KEEP HOPES ALIVE WITH CUP SCALP

GHA RFC MATCH 250: GHA RFC 33 – 23 HILLHEAD / JORDANHILL RFC 

2012/2013: West Cup – Group A

GHA secured their best win of the season after a 33-23 bonus point victory against Hillhead/Jordanhill in the RBS West Regional Cup.

Four tries from Rangi Jericevich (2), Hefin O’Hare and Scott Carson helped them to an impressive win against a team who are 4th in the league above. The result leaves GHA in 2nd place in their group and still in contention for a place in the next round.

GHA Captain Andy Henderson believes it was the team’s best performance of the season. He said:

“I thought it was one of our best performances of the season. Particularly in defence, they had some big strong runners but we fronted up well and stopped them getting too far over the gain line. In attack as well was pretty good and I think overall the performance was one of the best of the season. It is good for the confidence. Hillhead are used to playing at a higher level week in week out. To come up against them and play really well and come away with a good result certainly gives us a bit of confidence going back into the league games. Hopefully we can keep that up, going back into the league next week and get a performance close to that as well.”

GHA handed Hills’ the early initiative with a knock on at the opening kick off. After 5 minutes of relentless phase play from the visitors they were unable to break down the solid GHA defense and in the end settled for 3 points after a GHA infringement gave them an easy penalty attempt.

GHA’s response was swift. Some fantastic play saw them pull the Hill’s defenders across the park and a deft grubber from fly half Dominic Dunn was pounced on by right winger Jericevich to score in the left hand corner.

John Brogan added a penalty before a second GHA try again from a beautifully weighted kick, this time from skipper Andrew Henderson, saw Hefin O’Hare win the race for the touch down.

Hills’ hit back when their number 6 took an offload from his back row compatriot and broke clear inside the GHA 22. He was too quick for the cover defenders and powered through the last ditch tackle to score.

Brogan added a second penalty to give GHA an 8 point lead. Then, some more fantastic build up play from GHA gave Jericevich an opportunity on the right and side. He outpaced the first defender before cutting inside the full back and then breaking to the outside once more to score in the corner. This gave GHA a well deserved 23 to 8 half time lead,

Perhaps predictably Hills’ came out strongly in the second half and that, coupled with a drop off in intensity from the home side, gave them the early initiative which they took with a penalty followed by a great try from a cross field kick.

Brogan kept the visitors at arms length with another penalty before a memorable try for substitute and club stalwart Scott Carson, who ran a nice support line off of a great line break from Brogan to score under the posts.

Hills’ had the final say with another score to cap a fairly even second half but the game was won in the opening 40 minutes, undoubtedly the best half of rugby that GHA have played this season.

Next week GHA travel to Burnbrae in Bearsden to face West of Scotland. Kick Off is 2pm.

Source: David Coates