Gung-ho Greens find their mojo as Caithness romp home
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A second-half surge kickstarted the Greens' season as they came from behind to beat Hillfoots 27-12 at Millbank on Saturday.
After being outgunned in their first two outings, Kenny Russell's men eventually found their mojo, scoring 17 unopposed points to overcome combative and committed, if limited, opponents.
Their cause was helped by the return of a clutch of experienced campaigners, including Grant Anderson, Mark Nicolson, Graham Fryer and the Webster brothers, Scott and Douglas.
Russell will now be looking for them to take some of that new-found form into Saturday's away match versus Aberdeen Wanderers.
Hillfoots saw precious little of the ball in the first half, spending long periods doggedly defending their line.
Their hosts contrived to butcher a string of try-scoring opportunities to go in at the interval trailing 12-10.
They were gifted the lead on three minutes when Greens fly half Jamie Mowat charged down a would-be clearance kick and centre Stuart Crighton pounced on the loose ball in-goal.
Within five minutes, the scores were level when Hillfoots capped their first visit to the home 22 with a couple of dominant scrums providing the platform for back rower Ian Anderson to power over from close in.
While not helped by a creaking scrum and a misfiring line-out, the Greens bossed open play, only to time and again fail to exploit clear overlaps.
Yard-guzzling midfield line breaks from Grant Anderson, Kevin Budge and Hamish Coghill withered on the vine through a mix of careless hands, blinkered vision and a lack of depth from support runners.
The Greens belatedly restored their lead four minutes from half-time when a cut-out pass from Mowat found flanker Max Kennedy who neatly jinked his way past an opponent to touch down near the left corner flag.
Hillfoots punctured the renewed feel-good score in the home camp when they scored on their second visit to the opposition 22 in the last action of the half.
After a series of close-in thrusts was repelled, hooker Keith Slade slithered through a gap to score a try, converted by Fraser Christie.
Caithness did themselves no favours in the third quarter when indiscipline saw them concede a string of penalties before Budge was yellow carded for lashing out at an opponent at a ruck.
They made light of being a man down when they retook the lead after Cameron Ryder's sparky break and feed allowed Anderson to cross. Ryder added the extras.
With the pack recycling the ball quicker from the breakdown and Scott Webster moved to fly half, the Greens started to stretch their opponents and overload the wide channels.
Centre Charlie Quinn stormed in for the bonus-point try wide out right before Ryder did the donkey work to send in Anderson for his second and end the scoring.
Coach Russell was delighted to notch up a first league victory.
"I think we were so desperate to get the win that our play was affected by a bit of nervousness for much of the first half," he said. "We often tried one pass too many while we didn't look after the ball well in certain parts of the field.
"It was in our interest to speed the game up [in the second half] and manipulate their defence so we had a bit more space when the ball went wide."
Fryer is offshore for Saturday's trip to the Granite City but Gordie Macleod is available again, while there are no fresh injury concerns.
Elsewhere in Caley 1, Aberdeen Wanderers were hammered 86-12 at home to Dunfermline while Ellon defeated Aberdeenshire 57-31 and Grangemouth Stags prevailed 45-25 at Blairgowrie.
