Bad Day At The Office For Knox

Winning streaks can't go on forever and Knox's came to a resounding halt on Saturday morning against a strong team from Kelso.

The omens were not good for Knox as a mixture of illness, unavailability and unexplained absences meant the home team only had 14 players and only 5 of them were playing in the same positions they occupied against Royal High the previous week. However, Knox have built up a degree of confidence and took to the pitch determined to put in a good performance.

The first 5 minutes of the game were very even with both teams showing positive attacking intent on a blustery day, but both defences managing to stop their opposite numbers. Kelso's backs seemed slightly the stronger and it was their stand off who made the first clean break of the day. He was caught, but the damage was done and a supporting player nipped under the posts for their first try.

Not long after kick off, sloppy defence by Knox at a ruck allowed Kelso through again for an all too easy try. This was followed up by a quick third.

Knox have not been used to this recently and so came back determined to get a foothold in the game. Once again their strong pack took hold of possession and the team worked their way up the park. A succession of penalties, lineouts and drives for the line saw Wright push a wee grubber kick through only for it to bounce kindly for the covering Kelso full back. The pressure was still on though and the Knox lineout, which functioned well all day, took the ball cleanly and Thomson peeled round the blind side to score a good try.

Knox were back in the game and putting Kelso under pressure again. The scrum was proving particularly powerful with McQuade putting in a good shift for the full game. Another good move saw Dewar take a short pop from Wright and burst through the middle of defence only for his offload to be dropped just as it looked like another try was about to come.

Knox kept up their hold of the ball in Kelso's half sensing they were about to get through again as the away team continued to infringe. However, in one attack, Cunningham fell awkwardly and had to retire from the game leaving Knox even more short handed. Kelso lent the hosts another of their substitutes, but this seemed to turn the tide strongly in the visitors favour as the Knox backs struggled from this point on.

Knox began to fall off tackles and started to lose their control as Kelso pulled away to end up easy winners.

Final score: Knox Academy 5 Kelso High School 53

The coaches gathered the team afterwards and reminded them how many players were missing and how well they had played recently. Every team has the odd blip and this was theirs. What is important is that they retain their self control, get back to training to work on improving and ensure they don't let themselves get intimidated by the opposition in that way again.

Hopefully some of the missing faces will be back next weekend so the team can put out a much stronger squad against local rivals Dunbar. Who knows, we might even get a few new or returning players back again as this will be needed for this squad to fulfil its obvious potential.