Biggar closer to survival after good win over Falkirk

Jan 20 2011 by Andrew McGilvray, Hamilton Advertiser

BIGGAR moved up to third place in the Premier C table after defeating fourth-placed Falkirk on Saturday.

Despite a nine-week lay-off, Biggar dominated this match against a side who looked unfit and were apparently bereft of motivation and ideas.

A similar performance from Biggar against Hillhead/Jordanhill this weekend would go a long way towards securing their Premier 2 status for next season.

Falkirk were looking to profit from handling errors or loose balls and an early penalty attempt was unsurprisingly pushed wide, given the strength of the wind.

A Falkirk attack was brought to an abrupt end with a huge hit from Suti Faamausili.

Worse was to come for Falkirk who saw a full-back yellow-carded.

However, it wasn’t long before the visitors were back on the attack and Biggar breathed a sigh of relief when a second penalty attempt was pulled wide.

Salo Tutaia repelled another Falkirk surge and it was becoming clear that the heavy work of trying to contain Biggar and also attack was taking its toll on the pack.

Just before half-time, Biggar earned a scrum close to the Falkirk line and went for the push-over try, with Jason Kelly credited. Craig Parker missed the conversion.

Biggar were very much on top in the second half.

Jade Gardner went close, as did Connor Lavery before Tutaia was held up as Biggar continued to pile on the pressure at the line.

A five-metre scrum and another push-over attempt saw the ball pop out of the scrum and away from captain Davy Reive, while a Kelly pick-and-drive resulted in a penalty, but Parker couldn’t convert.

A mix-up on the restart saw Biggar knock the ball on, with Falkirk using the scrum for some respite.

With 20 minutes on the clock, Parker was again thwarted by the wind at a penalty attempt but ball taken from the drop-out went to Lavery, who chipped over the defence for Alistair Browning, who dropped over the line. Parker added the points from in front of the posts.

A penalty to Biggar saw Douglas make ground from his 22 to Falkirk’s 22 and, although Tutaia was dispossessed as he tried to burst through, the ball was picked up by Kelly, who fed Browning to crash over to complete the scoring.