Greenock Wanderers' pre-season preparations suffered a reverse at Fort Matilda on Saturday when National League Division One side Hillhead/ Jordanhill enjoyed a comfortable five-try victory.

Worse news for the locals though was that star centre pairing, captain Brendan McGroarty and Kieren Smith, both suffered injuries which will require treatment this week.

McGroarty suffered rib damage and Smith took a knock to his shoulder For Wanderers it was a testing afternoon which started brightly when they held the ascendancy throughout the opening quarter, but their failure to turn pressure into points ultimately led to their undoing.

Thereafter the visitors took control of the game and outgunned the Wanderers' pack, particularly in the set pieces of scrum and lineout.

The locals did produce some fine passages of play, most notably through Callum Robb, Leigh Tyley and skipper McGroarty, but generally failed to wrestle the initiative from the Hughenden side.

On 25 minutes a fine set piece catch and drive off the lineout led to the opening try for Hills' but the 5-0 scoreline at the interval reflected the dogged determination shown by Wanderers.

The second period though was mostly one way traffic as the visitors upped the intensity and used their superior size and strength to good effect.

More scores followed in the 44th, 52nd, 70th and 75th minutes to round off a satisfactory day for the Glasgow side.

Wanderers can take heart from their stout rearguard action and had many heroes in defence, which held the visitors at bay for large segments of the match.

Head coach Graham Finnie remained typically upbeat in his post match analysis and praised the efforts of his players.

Finnie said: "I was happy with many aspects of the performance and there was a lot of good work done out there ,although we will have to be more accurate in targeting the ball at the breakdown and in our passing.

"It's the performance rather than the result which is important at this stage of the season and we took plenty of positives from the game" Wanderers' scheduled match against Glasgow Hawks on Tuesday evening has been cancelled due to player non-availability, which means the locals will host their final pre-season match next Saturday when old rivals Glasgow High/Kelvinside visit Fort Matilda with a 3pm kick-off.

l Wanderers are sponsored by Texas Instruments