Two tries late in the last 10 minutes of the match saved Wanderers from a home defeat and do a smash and grab on some points from Banff. Indeed the home side could have snatched victory for themseleves had a late penalty landed or the brave follow up by Charbonnier gone to hand.

At Groats road the weather was overcast in the afternoon sky which made it feel more Winter than the start of Autumn . There was little signs of any sunshine appearing in the sky or on the pitch, where the play was stuttered and fluency of movement was somewhat at a premium for most of the match until the latter stages.

Banff proved as difficult to beat as they always do for Wanderers, and today was to be no different. Indeed for most of the first half they showed the more aggression in the contact and won many turn over balls as Wanderers continued to try and take them on up front. The Banff defence were wise and as one man tackled to keep the man on his feet the other targeted the ball to rip it.

The Wanderers difficulties at the contact  were not eased by some new law interpretations of the contact and tackle area  which certainly  did not match anything in use on the Tri nations matches shown recently, but that did not exclude Wanderers players from playing the same rules.

The away side were the first to score with a penalty in the first half only to be equalled by a Wanderers Aplin penalty soon after the restart . Banff scored twice in the second half with two unconverted tries, and last  conversion was a sitter. The first try was a neat move down the old caravan park side of the pitch at a ruck after the Wanderers defence had been sucked in and  Banff went blind where there was no one left to stop them a clear run in.

The second was from a returned ball ran at Wanderers where the defence line was extremely slow to cover giving Banff an easy 3 or 4 to 1 overlap  and they executed the move well.

Only then in the final 10 minutes were the Wanderers finally stung into action and the visitors seemed to lose their grip on the contact area and the wanderers backs started to make holes in the defence and open gaps with some positive close support.A tap penalty taken quickly by Aplin allowed the Wanderers to score in the corner.Then a good try after a drive in midfield was an attack by Charbonnier was held up,Muirhead popped the pass to Aplin to score an unconverted try.The Wanderers contnued to pressure from the restart

 and almost took the match with a penalty from Aplin which went left of the posts  but was followed up and almost scored a try.In the end it was the home team that certainly had the ascendency pressing the Banff side but the accuracy of the final pass was missing and the knock on ensued.

For Wanderers hopefully this will be the shake up call that will remind them  there are a lot of teams ready to challenge them this season and focus all on resolving the issues highlighted today. On the positive side the team did show character and strength in continuing to the end and never dropping their heads. 

But congratulations are also due to Banff, on another hard and committed display, they came with a plan, and executed the plan almost perfectly and just fell down in the last 20 minutes from their first victory at Groats road for many years. 



Cyclops

Caledonia Div 2 NE (2010-11)