As the 1st XV travelled to face a stubborn Kelso the 2nds came up against unbeaten Melrose Strom at Myreside. 1st XV Team Manager Stan Buchan reports:
A trip to Kelso on Saturday 26th March and a glorious day for rugby started brightly with a great' 50:22' kick by Ally Davidson.
The pack quickly seized the opportunity and they rumbled over the Kelso line, with Jamie Holligan getting the touchdown. Matt McMillan converted and we were 7-0 in front.
Kelso looked sharp in the backs and came back almost immediately with a try in the corner but failed to convert.
McMillan once again showed his prowess with the boot and added a penalty to take us out to 10 – 5 and the Sonians began to build some pressure before being held up over their line resulting in a goal-line dropout for Kelso.
Angus Hoffie was adjudged out as he dived over at the corner flag (There's no TMO at a National 1 game), and Watsonians opted for a scrum when 3 points with a kick were on offer. Unfortunately, the scrum failed to yield anything.
Kelso kicked long and Fin Jacobs, having another cracking game, gathered under pressure and, instead of kicking long, kicked it straight out as the clock timer showed the 40 minutes up and he believed it was half-time. The referee's watch showed something different and from the resulting lineout, Kelso scored a try and followed it with a conversion to go in at half-time 12 – 10 up, when on reflection, it could just as easily have been 13 – 5 to us.
Kelso came out firing in the 2nd half but couldn't break our stout defence and only added two penalties.
But as Kelso also defended strongly, Watsonians could only add a penalty to our score despite our best efforts.
The final score was 18 – 13 and we gained a point to keep us two points ahead of Cartha, who matched our result our Stirling with a draw.
Cartha has Three games in hand and must be favourites now to avoid relegation. We visit our biggest rivals, Heriots, on Saturday for our season's final game and hope we can upset the odds as they chase the title.
Now we come to what may be the result of the season for the Club. On Saturday, Melrose 2s arrived at Myreside, unbeaten all season and due to receive the East 2 Reserve title after the match.
They duly won the title but not as an unbeaten side as our 2nd XV won an entertaining match by 33 – 26.
Our try scorers were Osian Payne, Josh Mitchell x 2, Ross Stanley and Steven 'Steg' Findlay, who got the last try with virtually the last play of the game.
Ross Stanley converted four of the five tries and was awarded Man of the Match, but under current SRU rules, he cannot play for the 1st XV as he arrived here from England at the end of January and therefore outwith the 'transfer window'.
Never mind, we hope to see him and a few others in a similar position in the 7s (in which they are allowed to play). The 2nd XV starting line-up was as follows: -
- Beveridge, 2. Pritchard, 3. Murray-John, 4. Payne, 5. Findlay, 6. Barnes, 7. Fisher, 8. De Vos, 9. Martin, 10. Inglis, 11. Cumming, 12. Murphy, 13. Prenter, 14. Mitchell, 15. Stanley
Well done, boys!!!!!
Players note:
Thanks to all our supporters who made the journey down to Kelso on Saturday and to Stirling the previous week. The players, in particular, would like to thank Stuart Johnston, Colin Kidd, Phil Carmichael and Alan McKean for donating some of their winnings from Kelso's 50/50 draw towards beer for the bus home.
