Stewart's Melville 43-10 Falkirk: injury hit away team soundly beaten

Falkirk’s hopes had been high pre-match but they were blown away despite scoring a first half penalty and converted try.

“It was just a bad day at the office ultimately,” Falkirk director of rugby Kenny Grieve told the Falkirk Herald.

"We gave away far too many penalties and our discipline was really poor at the weekend.

"And that was compounded by some strange refereeing decisions.

"I think there were 36 penalties in the game and I think we gave away 22 of those penalties. It was just outrageous.

"Some of them were down to us but some were down to, as I say, some questionable refereeing decisions.

"They had a big heavy pack and a really good functioning lineout. They basically got the penalties kicked the ball to the corners, threw the ball at the lineouts and drove us over on several occasions which we didn’t deal with ultimately.

"We just didn’t perform to anywhere near where we should be. We were slow to the breakdown, we were second to every event pretty much."

Grieve said that key players missing – including inspirational skipper Harry Russell who was unavailable and injury victims like Graham Gilliland and Ewan Rooney – could be considered a legitimate reason for Falkirk’s below par performance.

"Harry’s our number nine and our captain,” he added. “He’s a very good player, he brings a lot of tempo to the game.

"Young Cammy Davie, who is just 19, was making his first start for the club at scrum half. He did OK. It’s a step up from where he has been playing with the 2nd XV.

"Obviously there’s quite a marked difference between him and Harry who’s hugely experienced, but he did well for his first start.”

While skipper Russell is available again to face Preston Lodge, KO 12.30pm, in this Saturday’s home league game, Gilliland and Rooney remain out injured and Gregor Ramsay is unavailable.

Despite the selection difficulties and the fact that Falkirk are seventh in the table with 21 points from eight games, Grieve is not pressing the panic button.

"Our resources are stretched really thinly at the moment,” he added.

"Having Harry back is a real boost because he’s a bit of a talisman for us. He dictates a lot of play, he gives us the tempo that we want to play at and he’s very sharp. We miss his leadership and experience.

"Preston Lodge are a side that are traditionally a big pack of forwards who choose route one to come at you.

"They’ll try and run over the top of you. But if we can cope with that, knock people over and just fill the field, they shouldn’t really be able to trouble us.

“If we can get ball on the front foot, we’ve got danger men in terms of Connor Faulds who can breach a defence and Gregor Dodds who is a good ball carrier and can play.

"If we can get enough ball and keep the tempo of the game high, then I would like to think that we’ll score a fair few points and we should be able to beat them.

"W e are still in the first round of league games, we’ve not played everybody once yet and we will end up playing them all twice.

"So I think we need to try and pick up another few points, whether it be bonus points or a win, which would be fantastic.

"If we keep getting two or three points here and there I’m pretty confident that when we get these guys back from injury – which is likely to be round about Christmas time – then we should be able to turn things around.

"We’d be looking to finish fifth or sixth in the table, which would not be a bad achievement.”