Leith 2XV 14 - 47 Peebles A

Match report by Kenny Dannfald.

A strong Leith squad with a mix of new and experienced players kicked the game off against a Peebles team who registered a good win in the capital last week against Heriots 3rd XV. The opening exchanges had both teams feeling each other out in the midfield. Leith had some of the early possession as Matt Allison and Michele Crolla made some surges with the ball but they were repelled by the Peebles defence.

The borders men started growing into the game as they started to see more of the ball. More than once they were able to string multiple phases together but the Leith defence was able to stop them. The work of loose forwards Andy MacIntosh and Stephen Baker as well as scrum half David Robertson and centres Will Tuft and Shaun Guesford was pivotal in keeping the scores at 0-0. Leith were struggling to keep any of their own ball and were penned into their own half which just invited more and more pressure. The Leith defence did keep standing up with the answers and as a testament to this the Peebles captain opted to go for the posts 3 times for the opening points of the game as he made 2 of the 3 to make it 6-0.

Leith could have taken great heart from this going into the half, however just as the game was approaching half time the first 2 missed tackles of the day for Leith in a half of defence resulted in 2 converted tries for the away team giving Peebles a bit of a cushion on the scoreboard.

Leith started the 2nd half where they finished the 1st on defence. The amount of defence and sheer number of tackles was starting to take its toll on the team as changes were starting to be made, Ewan Sutherland making an impression early on for the injured MacIntosh. Peebles once again kicked for the posts successfully before making the fresher legs pay with 3 or 4 scores in quick succession.

To their credit Leith still had their heads up and trying to play rugby, starting to retain possession more which was getting the front foot ball they needed to attack. Leith finally got on the scoreboard when Will Tuft, held together by sticky tape at this point, burst through the centre of the field from his own 22m surging towards the half way, his offload found Robertson who was able to attract a number of defenders before floating a wider pass to Dannfald who sprinted in from 40ms out.

This spurred Leith on to attack and were getting more success with the ref were able to get crucial field position and put pressure on the Peebles line. Felix Palin and in particular Ewan Sutherland came close to dotting down for Leith, this is before the ball is worked out to the backs and Olexa Dunko came close to crossing for his first Leith try. a penalty was awarded and after several pick and go's Matt Allison crashed over to keep his scoring record up. The touchline conversion brought the scoring to an end, 47-14 to the visitors.

Despite the scoreline the team can take great heart from the performance, the side they were up again was a very well drilled and organised 2s team for a National 2s club, Leith will be unlikely to face as good a 2s team all year, so the competitiveness until the half can be seen as a positive. There were several great performances across the pitch in the backs and the forwards but the Man of the Match was stand in Scrum Half, Dave Robertson both work in attack and defence was tireless throughout the day.