3XV Annan Trip

The 3XV’s longest trip of the season got off to a bad start when a seasoned member of the front row was late and was compounded by the stand in Captain for the day forgetting the strips, this left Andy Daniels standing at the Bellfield roundabout for 45 minutes in near Arctic conditions and Graham Piper standing at the Mitchell Library for 1hr 45m after a mix up with JC over meeting times.

We arrived at Annan 10 mins before KO, they graciously delayed kick off to give us a chance to get warmed up. We lined up against a very youthful looking Annan team on what can only be described as a heavy pitch, we chose the very strong wind in the first half but never really came to terms with the wind or the heavy pitch, their number 8 made some bullocking runs and indeed scored two tries from 5m scrums, he was a rather large chap that we never really dealt with very well, behind the scrum they were marshalled very well by their 10 who controlled the game.

Bad day at the office for us, apart from the first 20 mins in the second half we never really got going and struggled in the heavy conditions, it must be noted that out average age on the day was 35.
The bus journey home was just as interesting as the trip down, after finally getting on the bus it broke down 25 miles from Glasgow after the emergency door wouldn’t stay closed, all the experience on the bus came to some good as we used tape, socks and laces to hold the door closed thus allowing us to get on our way.
Apart from the result it was a great day out, I am sure there were a few bad hangovers on Sunday, needless to say this is not the place to publish any of the goings on, that will be discussed on our private forum. However our boat race team did lose to the Annan girls, names will be published on request.

I must thank our hosts who made us feel more than welcome