Edinburgh Northern 2XV 19 - 12 Leith Rugby 2XV

Match Report by George Easdon

With the two sides having had very different starts to the season, on paper Leith certainly had the edge against local rivals Edinburgh Northern. Unfortunately for the Leithers, however, the game has never been played on paper, with this particular instalment being played out on a boggy, cold Inverleith Park.

The game’s early stages proved that this would be the usual tense affair – so often defining matches between the two – and Northern definitely started stronger. Their tight physical gameplan suited the conditions well, with some big ball carriers in the pack making their presence felt, albeit being amply matched by robust defence from the Southern Hemisphere pairing of Bates & Moore in the engine room. As Northern resorted to playing the corners, the back three of Palin, Seymour, and Dunko were called into action and did incredibly well to gather some tricky kicks, building some promising counter attacks.

Despite some flashes of flair, Leith were unable to find either a metaphorical or physical foothold in the muddy turf and, as pressure began to mount, so too did the penalty count. Eventually the levee broke, Leith were pinged for straying offside, and a kick duly sailed deep into the Leith 22. This gave a shivering crowd a first glance of one of Northern’s strongest weapons – a technically excellent rolling maul – and a few seconds later the home side crashed over the whitewash to open the scoring.

This gave Leith exactly the jolt they required, and it wasn’t long before they started to assert themselves on the game, notably through the subtle play of dream double-act Winton & Meadows, who showed some deft vision and the soft hands to go with it to put their teammates through an almost-infinite number of holes in the defensive line. Openside Craig Allan was another standout contributor to the Leith resurgence, demonstrating some frightening physicality and dominating the battle in the trenches. However, sensing that he may have gone 300 words of a match report without being mentioned, number 8 Michele Crolla duly picked the perfect moment to carve a tight line at pace, skittle the defence, and gallop 40m to the tryline. Game on.

Whilst the remainder of the first half remained tight, the second half started with a bang as Northern changed things up by swinging a ball wide, exposing some space and gifting their winger a sure run-in. However, Felix Palin had clearly missed the memo about this being a certain score, demonstrating some unbelievable pace for a prop and sprinting back to make the try-saving tackle. Leith somehow managed to regroup behind their line, and thanks to a Northern error were able to exit with scoreline intact. This passage of play typified Palin’s drive, going a long way to earning him a very well-deserved MOTM award.

This was as good a time as any to ring the changes, with Stephen Baker, Christian Jetuah and debutant Ben Scott coming on to lend some muscle to a tiring pack, the latter starting his Leith career on a very strong foot. Combined with the energy from backs replacements George Easdon and Craig Murray, Leith started clawing their way back into the game. They were in fact unlucky not to convert on a number of occasions as centre Jaime Najera-Aleson was now splitting the opposing centres at will, with the final pass constantly falling agonisingly short.

It was perhaps inevitable that Northern would eventually crash over from another rolling maul, with a third score being added shortly afterwards as a Northern runner was felled a few metres from the try line before wriggling his way through the resultant ruck to dot down. Some would say this was an extended case of ‘momentum’, most would argue double movement, but all would agree that Leith now had a mountain to climb.
And for a while it looked as though the men in blue and white could well conquer this particular peak. Easdon gathered a loose kick and threaded a ball wide to Najera-Aleson, who torched his opposite man before putting Guesford into space, who ran a perfect support line and carved through three tacklers before leisurely touching down between the sticks.

All signs were pointing to a fairytale ending for the Leithers, but time was drifting away and the game started to be forced in search of a miracle ball. This would’ve been a tall order at the best of times, but was almost impossible given the conditions and Northern were able to gather possession with a few minutes to go, doing incredibly well to keep the ball and grind out a 19-12 victory.

Incredibly disappointing for Leith to lose their 100% record in this manner, but hats off to Northern who were able to keep their heads, assert dominance at the set piece, and see out a win in some challenging conditions. All eyes are now on the March rematch!