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Saints do Dalziel Treble!
Saints travelled to Dalziel for a third competitive game against their old foes this season. Already two up in the series Saints aimed to continue their pressure at the top of Premier 3.
The early exchanges were even with an adventurous Saints team looking to repeat the performance against Perthshire from the previous week. However Dalziel opened the scoring with try from Harris which he converted. Dumfries were rattled, struggling with the referees interpretation and giving away too many penalties. Harris was on form for Dalziel however and soon took the score to 10 nil. The penalty count continued to rise but from a ruck following a broken up scrum captain Paddy Coupar picked up and went down the blindside to score a solo try, the conversion was missed but Saints were back at 10 -5. Frustratingly just before half time Saints gave away another penalty and Harris made it 13 – 5 at halftime.
Coach Tam McGaw rang the changes at half time bringing on all four subs. The half back pairing which had been stuttering was replaced with Finlay Miller and Graeme Gemmell. Polly Smith came into the back row and Cammy Hogg returned from injury into the second row.
Two minutes into the second half Saints got their reward when centre Sam Hiddleston scored and this time brother Tom got the conversion to take the score to Dalziel 13 Dumfries 12. This was short lived as Saints gave away another penalty which Harris took to go 16-12 up.
But Dumfries were competing well now and had the bulk of possession. The scrum was looking strong and this led to a push over try for Daniel Henderson. Tom Hiddleston converted to take Saints ahead for the first time in the game at 16 to 19. In the closing minutes Adam Whelan picked up a loose Dalziel pass inside his own 22 and ran the length of the field for try. The conversion was missed but that was the fourth try and gave Saints a rare but well deserved bonus point.
A good result for Saints on a day when the Coach made calls that came off! Both Saints and Dalziel will be glad of a break from playing each other!
Team; B Kennedy, F Paul, G McCall, S Kennedy, A Mather, P Coupar, F Miller, D Henderson, A Ainslie, J Kerr, K Henderson, G Gemmell, S Hiddleston, V Satala, T Hiddleston. Subs all used; S Graham, P Smith, C Hogg and A Whelan.
