CALLY COLLAPSE AT TIGER FIELD

Glasgow Tigers ran the Caledonian Roughriders into the ground at Garscube Sports Centre, clocking up a 44 point whitewash in the only Glasgow Gridiron Derby of the 2004 season.

Having clocked up 74 points without reply against their local rival’s on their last visit to Garscube, the Tigers were always clear favourites coming into this game.

But they were facing a much stronger Cally side, which last week just missed out on their first franchise victory over the Teeside Cougars.

And their defensive unit soon served notice that this was not going to be a walk in the par once again, shutting down the Tigers offense during the first quarter.

But they soon found themselves two scores down by half time, thanks to touchdowns from Mat McCree and Peter Neil.

Then the Tigers offensive unit, who clocked up 47 unanswered points against Napier University finally stamped their authority against a deflated Roughriders side during the second half with three running touchdowns from Kenny McPhail, a 52 yard punt return from Ian Hay and a touchdown and a two point conversion from Andy Hall

“The pressure was always on us today,” said Hall. “Unless you went out there and showed we had the game then it could have looked bad.”

“I think that was in the back of the guys minds and it took a while to settle down. But in the second half we really got things together “

“This is something that we have worked on a lot this year. In that fourth quarter I think that we had only five offensive plays and we got three touchdowns off them. The offensive line did a storming job today.

“It felt good running with holes that big just to choose. Always makes a good change.”

Things started promisingly for the Roughriders on the Tigers opening drive of the first quarter when their punt attempt was blocked with the ball downed at mid field.

Then Roughriders Quarterback Ally Choat connected with receiver Kenny Muir who took the ball to the Tigers 25 yard line and a new set of downs.

But two successive penalties cancelled out the Roughriders earlier good work but managed to partially recover when Choat hooked up with Muir once again, moving them back to the Tigers 40 yard line.

Unfortunately the drive made no further progress and the curtain came down on what was a very short first quarter.

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