National Shield defeat must act as a learning curve for beaten Highland
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LOSING the National Shield final has to act as a learning curve for Highland, according to veteran full-back Morris Dillon.
Many in the Highland camp cited individual mistakes underpinning their 34-27 defeat to Carrick and Dillon, one of two players left from the side that lost the BT Bowl at Murrayfield in 2006, said it has to make his side better.
Much to the surprise of everyone at Murrayfield, Highland’s first half dominance yielded only 12 points as they led 12-5 at the break. They were made to pay as Carrick blitzed the scoreboard with three quick scores at the start of the second to take control of the game.
That profligacy in the first half, in which Carrick were practically camped on their own goal-line, cost the Canal Park side and second half efforts by Andrew Findlater and Craig Little were not enough to drag them back into the game.
Dillon was honest in his assessment of Highland’s own performance and hopes in future, mistakes are learned from quicker.
“You can’t come to a final against a team with the quality of Carrick and make as many errors as we did,” he said. “That’s just sport. If you want to win a final you have to give your best and at times on Saturday, we didn’t.
“You learn a lot from games like that. We’ve beaten a lot of teams this season and we have to remember how it feels to be on the losing side. We need to take that into next season when we go up into the National Leagues.”
Dillon is one of the more experienced heads in the squad and the 34-year-old had scored at Murrayfield before, in the losing effort against Morgan Academy 10 years ago.
This game was a much tighter encounter, as tries by Paddy Bryden and Tom Brogan put Highland in the lead in the first half. However, Gordon Brown, Kyle Johnson and Gordon Gregor all went over for Carrick in a hectic 15-minute period at the start of the second period to turn the game on its head.
Handling errors and desperate defending from Carrick kept them in the game at the break and they took great heart at being just five points behind.
“In the first 25 minutes we were all over the them. We made too many individual errors and probably should have been 15 points up,” said Dillon, a Dingwall Academy PE teacher.
“We paid for that and fair play to Carrick, they shifted the ball really well and I don’t think we dealt with it.
“We didn’t drift out quick enough. The first time it happened we should be learning. We didn’t do that and they probed a weakness, getting a few points as a result of it.
“We can’t take anything away from Carrick because they knew what our weaknesses were.
We give them respect because they’ve had an incredible season as well.”
