Rare Friday night outing under lights for Highland at Stirling
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Highland Rugby Club will be in rare Friday night action tomorrow when they travel to Stirling for a National One fixture.
It is an opportunity for Dave Carson’s men to put daylight between them and the Wolves in the league table, as Highland try to keep tabs on what looks like being a congested title race.
Many tough challenges have already come and gone, with plenty more still in the pipeline throughout the rest of the campaign, but going on the road on a Friday night rather than a Saturday afternoon will be one of the more unusual things Carson has to adapt to this year.
“It has only ever happened at the club before,” he reasoned.
“The seconds played two or three matches on a Friday night against local opposition, and it has been fine.
“We’ll have to make sure this week that everyone has prepared as they would for a Saturday game so that everyone is in the right shape.
“We had a session on Tuesday on the grass pitch – we’ve got portable floodlights that our main sponsors HSS have put up for us.
“We’ve made use of that, and then tonight we’ll just bring them in for 40 minutes or so and run through some game plays. It will be a very light session before releasing them off.”
One player back in the fold after a second absence through injury this season is Hugo Crush, and Carson is delighted to see him return.
“He had no issues last week after training, so we’ll have had another two nights out of him before Stirling, and one on the grass so we’ll see how he reacts to that,” Carson added.
“Hopefully he will be back and raring to go, which will be a huge benefit to the team. They were looking at Christmas, but he has worked really hard on his rehab to get back quicker.
“He is a quality player. Young Ross (Thomson) has done really well at nine, and now Hugo is coming back in and challenging him which will push them both.”
