Trojans Ride through Hurricane to Begin Season

Two safeties and a touchdown by Gary McNey to Paul Keys sealed an historic opening victory in the history of the West Coast Trojans over the Dundee Hurricanes.

The not-so-ideal windy conditions at Dawson Park at game time had the potential to affect both team’s execution of their game plans.

Frequent exchanges of possession due to the mind boggling number of fumbles and turnover on downs by both clubs consequently made this regular season opener a battle of field position.

The opening quarter justified this afterthought with head coaches McNey and Bruce Foster searching to find a way to stamp their authority over each other with a consistent ground game.

Losing star running back Mahamadou Niakaté at the beginning of the first quarter to an ankle sprain with possible ligament damage took the wind out of any surge in the Hurricanes.

The visitors set out to capitalise this stroke of luck with a wind judged punt by McNey forcing Dundee into their own red zone.

Any attempt to drive out of this predicament was short lived with a three and out. The subsequent punt by Jeff Bryan into the wind went 16 yards backwards into the end zone.

Only the quick thinking of Graham Thomson kicking the ball out of the end zone limited the damage with the Trojans leading by two points instead of six.

Further threats by the visitors came in the form of one-two punch RBs Jordan Faulkner and Jon Sutherland but any drives into the red zone were immediately quashed with stringent defence led by American Tim Watson with a game total of 14 tackles and a sack.

Unfortunately Watson would be later taken off the field with a possible concussion: His condition at press time is unavailable.

At half time the game had all the ingredients of a defensive battle with West Coast leading 2-0.
The second period only increased the anxiety with any potential game breaking drives by both teams being negated by fundamental errors.

The frustration for Dundee only continued with an interception by free safety Carlos Yanes-Roca who was tackled on his own one yard line.

Failure to prevent the penetration meant that quarterback Bruce Thompson ended up seeing more of the grass close up than he would ideally would have liked with Mike Smith sacking him in the end zone for a safety, giving the Trojans a 4-0 lead.

With the wind in the favour of West Coast they sensed the chance to kill the game off.
An aerial assault orchestrated by McNey ended with an eight yard touchdown pass to Keys.

The quarterback draw for the two point conversion was successful.

Never a team to let their heads go down Dundee fought to the end with possession saving catches being made by Fraser Thompson.

With his brother Bruce evading tacklers in an constantly collapsing pocket the young Thompson took it upon himself to get his side back into the game.

An eight yard touchdown run brought the Hurricanes six points behind, making the game interesting in the final moments. But a botched onside kick sealed a 12-6 Trojans victory.

In victory head coach McNey was pleased with the development of his young squad.
He said “I’m excited, today’s game was a big test for us and I couldn’t have hoped for a better start to the season."

"We’ve got a squad that’s 50% experienced and 50% youth so it provides us with a perfect balance. Dundee today were a tough team in the way they play and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a different side when we play them again”.

For Bruce Foster the defeat did bring out plenty of positives. He said: “Today we had bad execution and were making basic mistakes; we’ve got a good indication with what we need to do. We have no excuses and we should have played a lot better."

"There were some good performances in which we can build upon but work has to be done.”

Dundee will host Edinburgh Wolves on the 1st May.
West Coast travel to Glasgow on the 8th May.