Try/catch block didn't fix the NoSuchFieldException because it was already being caught further down stack and having a stacktrace printed.  Instead disable the Grails feature/hack which is causing the problem.  (although reenable it after, because it presumably increases the efficiency of string operations in cases where this problem isn't occurring)
After code review
Merge pull request #222 from aodn/actual_fix_for_no_count_exception

Different fix for NoSuchFieldException