WATSONIANS have a tough five-day turnaround to contend with tonight as they welcome Stirling County to Myreside. But, after getting their Super6 campaign off to a winning start with a hard-fought win against the Ayrshire Bulls last weekend, Fergus Pringle’s squad are in confident mood.
“It’s not an easy place to go, especially for the first game of the season, so we were really pleased with that,” winger Harvey Elms said of Sunday’s 26-21 victory at Millbrae. “Hopefully we can back that up with a few more wins in the next few weeks.”
A member of Glasgow Warriors’ back-up squad last season, Elms played for Scotland Sevens before that. However, he first made his name with Currie, whose then head coach, Ben Cairns, is now in charge of today’s visitors to Myreside.
“Ben’s a great coach,” Elms added. “I worked with him for four years when I was at Currie, so there is no doubt that Stirling will be a very well-drilled team, very physical and look to have a crack when it is on. Knowing Ben, he will have done his analysis on us, so it should be a good game.”
Pringle has selected an unchanged back division for the match but has made four changes to his pack, including at tighthead, where former Ayr player Steven Longwell comes in for his debut. By contrast, Cairns has gone with the pack that began last week’s 24-24 draw at home to the Southern Knights, but made three changes behind the scrum.
“We were happy with large parts of our performance last weekend, particularly how clinical we were when in the opponents’ half,” the County coach said. “The challenge this week is to combine this with getting into the right areas more often and gaining more of a foothold in that middle third.”
After claiming a try bonus in that high-scoring draw at Bridgehaugh last week, the Knights have an away game this week too, at Heriot’s on Sunday. The Goldenacre side collected only a losing bonus in a close contest at Meggetland last Friday, going down 15-13, and passed up on a gilt-edged chance to secure a share of the spoils with the last kick of the contest when a Bruce Houston conversion attempt came back off a post.
Having held on for that victory, the Boroughmuir Bears face another tough fixture tomorrow[Sat] when they take on the Bulls at Millbrae.
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