Out of the mouths of babes…….

The Wing Centre had a little chat with Henry Corrigan at the close of the match against Lovat on Saturday past. Henry does not really share very much but he did say “Who’s that?”

“That” was Iain Kennedy the fellow from Fort William who was trying to get the lads from Kiltarlity and the boys from Drum to obey the rules ……. which they didn’t really do.

 Henry moved on. “Who’s that?” he said. It looked to the Wing Centre like Rory Maclean, the plumber from Torr Darrach who, if he is not reading a book, is always blethering. Like most up the Glenners, he likes a ceilidh and he was passing the afternoon in the company of some young ladies who may or may not have been intent in learning about Rory’s specialist subject of plumbing.

 “It’s Rory,” the Wing Centre said- at which point Henry lost interest (who can blame him? ) and he started crying. Which is really what the Wing Centre felt like doing after the Lovat game. In fact he actually did, just like Henry, start crying when he found out about the result of the second team game over at Kinlochshiel. 

The girls of course-typical of them-only went and won their game against Aberdour so at least the feminine side of Glenurquhart could celebrate somewhat -except there is nowhere left for us to celebrate in- unless it is at the chippie with a haddock supper.

Anyway, let’s start with the positives. It was good to see ref Stevie MacLachlan looking good after his close call a fortnight or so back. He was speaking with Mr Kennedy about what one can only imagine was referee’s stuff when the Wing Centre met up with him. Stevie was upbeat and with care and time he will be back. If Christian Eriksen can come back from similar problems to play in the Premier League then……you fill in the blanks.

As for the game v Lovat, at least the weather was dry and the crowd was eventually good-though we need to see as many new faces coming along as possible given that the village is growing. However, we will have to improve somewhat if we are to encourage them to come by providing them with something to cheer about.  Indeed, the first half did provide us with some hope although it did not look great in the first quarter when Lovat’s Greg Matheson did what he does best by smashing an unstoppable shot from an acute angle. In fact, Greg was so far out on the left that he was in danger of being run down on the A82 before he fired in the opener. The match was closely contested at this stage with Lovat getting a little more possession in the midfield and they might have made more use of their dominance though when Calum Cruden fired a shot from distance over the bar without testing the keeper. Other close work by Bailey Mackay looked promising but was thwarted by fine defensive work from Finlay Robertson.

Glen equalised in 19 minutes with an exceptionally well worked goal. For some time winger Alfie Macleod looked to have the edge on his opponent and having got the ball on the right he passed it neatly inside where Andrew Corrigan managed to fire it on to Lovat keeper Stuart Macdonald who was able to keep the ball out. Unfortunately, he was not able to kill the ball and Glen winger Daniel Maclean was on hand to slip the rebound neatly past the Lovat keeper to make it 1-1.

For the rest of the half the game was competitive and reasonably even – though the visitors from over the hill always looked likely to score. They even managed to get some shots on target but Stuart Mackintosh was always on hand to block and clear- and good centreline work from in particular Liam Robertson pushed some pressure on the Lovat backline. However the solid Howie along with Mainland and Dan Grieve- before he came off – were always too strong and sure in their hitting to be really troubled.

Then it all kicked off. Glen defender Fergus Robertson who was playing well had a rush of blood and swung through Greg Matheson not once but twice. The first swing was fair enough- the ball was there and Greg had his foot in front of it- it might have merited a yellow-but the second raised the tariff to red. Then there was a stramash at the end of which Lovat wing forward Lorne Mackay was also red-carded along with Fergus. Meanwhile Greg was left with a sore foot. Mr Kennedy dealt with the furore sensibly - he could have ended the match at that moment by dishing out a blizzard of yellow cards but he resisted that temptation - and the match carried on at 10 a side until the half-time break. To be fair also there were a couple of times later in the match when players went down with head knocks when he could have stopped the game before it went on to turn “ragged” -but that was in the second half and, in one of these ragged spells, the Glen conceded a penalty

However to stick with the plot, the second half followed a similar pattern to the first until a defensive slip by a Glen defender allowed Matheson another angled drive – and at 2-1 the game looked set to finish like that though the Glen youngsters - by that time John Cameron had come on - had their work cut out against tough tackling Lovat defenders who to be fair to them pushed the rules up to the very edge because they could.

Another clash in the Glen backline resulted in a penalty  which was saved by Stuart Mackintosh before Lewis Tawse eventually converted a chance late on to seal the match for Lovat. There was also a  fourth goal in the 95^th minute - how did the match last that long- which Graham Macmillan squeezed home to give a somewhat flattering gloss on the result but by that time the Glen defenders were taking down the advertising boards and getting ready to go home.

Despite all that the match was compelling stuff, competitive and compulsively enjoyable despite the result. The best thing about it though is that we have no pictures of the game to show how it went which is just as well-it will not be featuring in shinty memories in 40 years’ time.

The pictures we do have - from our special photographer on assignment come from Balmacara. They mark the only thing of note from a Glen perspective-the injury to big Calum Smith who had to leave the match in 15 minutes with a hand injury. He ended up in Broadford and was stitched - it would have been quicker than Raigmore.

Oh – and the girls won twice in the past week. The first team defeated Aberdour 7-1 with hat-tricks from Rebecca Van Loon and Zoe Smith and a single from Hazel Hunter while the seconds beat Lovat 9-6 with five goals from Freya Gault and four from Rowan Brockie. Pictures - just one of Hazel with grateful thanks to Neil Paterson.