Greenock Wanderers 9 Lasswade 27

The closest of rivals between Sept 2009 and April 2012, it took a League reorganisation and a subsequent loss of form by the Midlothian side to separate these two clubs.

Lasswade’s promotion back to Scotland’s third level brings them together again for the ninth time. Greenock narrowly missed relegation last season so this and Lasswade’s relative upward mobility and the seven from eight victories in the previous encounters made the visitors the favourites for this game even away from home.

The form book proved pretty nigh spot-on as Lasswade took a grip of the game from the outset, had the bonus try in the bag seven minutes into the second half and only relaxed in the last minute of the game to concede their first try of this season. Mark Wilson, who missed most of last season through injury, made up for some of that lost time, grabbing a hat-trick of tries all from more than thirty metres out by jinking past and outpacing the defence and making himself the most obvious candidate for Lasswade’s man-of-the-match.

Receiving the ball in near perfect conditions overhead and underfoot, the visitors had Wanderers under pressure on their line for the first ten minutes but needed their old faithful catch and drive finished off by Donald Hearn to open their account.

On the quarter-hour in their first but shallow encroachment into Lasswade’s half, Wanderers’ veteran standoff, Diffenthal, claimed three back with a well-stroked forty-metre penalty when a Lasswade tackler failed to release.

The home side’s relief was very temporary as they were forced back on the defensive. Just past the first quarter an attempted clearance kick fell shot and was gathered by Hall drew two defenders and offloaded to Wilson who set off for the first of his long-range tries.

3-10 seemed set to be the half time score but in stoppage time Lasswade turned over a Greenock line-out on half-way, whipped the ball out wide and Wilson ran it in again past several flailing, would-be tacklers.

The second period started in similar vein and a lineout and patient recycling through three-more phases gave Dave Hall the angle to show his speed through a gap to add the bonus point try with more than half an hour to play.

Wanderers rallied and for the next quarter hour stemmed the flow but needed Diffenthal’s boot to score anything as he punished some regrettable Lasswade indiscipline to bring the score to 9-20.

Any hopes of a home revival were crushed a few minutes later as Wilson completed his hat-trick finishing off a counter-attack originating inside the visitors’ 22. Hennessey slotted the conversion and even with 20 minutes to play the 18 point lead looked unassailable.

While Lasswade appeared to relax, Wanderers maintained their efforts but saw no return for them until the final minute of the game. Earning a five-metre scrum under the Lasswade posts their Captain, Love, picked up at the base and drove under the bar for an easy Diffenthal conversion which proved the last act of the game.

It’s impossible to improve on two out two five point wins at the start of the season but Biggar and Wanderers are both struggling at present. This is not the case for Hamilton who are Lasswade’s guests this Saturday. The North Lanarkshire side missed promotion to National 1 by just two points last season and have already amassed a points tally of 122:50 from their first two fixtures. Kick-off 3pm.