Given the amount of sand the home groundsman had used to treat the Arboretum pitch, the Leith players could have been forgiven for thinking this RBS Shield match had turned into a beach rugby tournament. Still with the sun splitting the sky, and a relatively firm track, the visitors knew they had no excuse for not turning in a performance in this local derby.

The game kicked off with Leith playing up the slope and as has been the case in our previous few fixtures against Inverleith we started slowly, and were immediately put under pressure from the off. A combination of good driving play from the hosts, and Leith's insistence on trying to run the ball from their our own 22 meant Inverleith eventually taking the first 3 points. After an extended period defending in their own 22, Leith were happy to have kept their line in tact. Keeping our hosts out seemed to spark Leith into life and from 1 – 15 the guys finally woke up and began to exert more and more pressure on the opposition. Getting outside the home centres was a regular occurrence, and after the final pass put paid to a couple of scoring opportunities, it wasn't too long before the first try of the afternoon came. From a kick fielded in the bottom right hand side of the pitch a length of the pitch movement was set in motion by the quick feet of Ryan Burgess, who danced past two would-be tacklers before popping outside to Kenny Dannfald who fed inside to Greg Hancock. The openside flanker beat another tackler before passing infield to Craig Smith who displayed good hands in supplying fellow winger Dave Robertson, who in turn put some pace on the ball through the middle of the pitch before drawing two opponents and shipping the ball out wide to Doug Watters. The skipper drew his man and passed to Ross Marwick who powered up the wing before offloading inside to Craig Winton and the rampaging loose-head demonstrated an impressive burst of pace and managed to get over in the corner to finish an excellent team try. Conversion missed from out wide.

Further pressure led to a penalty slotted by Watters to take the score to 8-3. With Leith now seeming to hold all the momentum, they were disappointed to concede the next score when, after Leith's openside defence forced Inverleith back to the blindside, the defence there hadn't pushed up, allowing the home 12 to put a chip kick over the top into the 22m, where a 'sandy' bounce took it away from Robertson and into the hands of the chasing centre who coasted in for a score. Conversion was good and the score was 10 – 8 to the home side.

The first half scoring wasn't done yet though, and while Leith were generally running the ball from everywhere, and making good yards in doing so, including a couple of excellent breaks by debutant George Nixon, who had come onto replace the injured Ross Marwick, it was a thumping kick from Ben Wilkinson from his own 22, which forced Inverleith into a line out deep in their 22. The pack forced the turnover at the throw and rolled through several phases before releasing to the backs whilst still going forward. Wilkinson skipped the ball to Watters who slipped a clever offload to left wing Craig Smith, who goosed round his opposite man and touched down in the corner. The conversion was missed and the halftime score was 13-10 in favour of Leith.

Half time score: Inverleith 10 - 13 Leith

With the sun at their backs, and playing down the slope in the second half, Leith were determined to maintain momentum, and this was evidenced by some excellent line speed whilst without possession. This was none more evident than our work in defence. Some thumping tackles, notably from Colin Marshall, Pete Mitchell and Willie Cook helped to ensure that the pressure was kept on, while Leith sought possession. Once secured, Leith then worked their third try of the day, a well worked backs move gave centre Watters the chance to exploit a gap in the midfield and race into the Inverleith 22 and where he linked up (a glorious offload - Ed) with an excellent line ran by fullback Dannfald who went over unchallenged under the posts. Conversion was good and the score was now 20-10.

Leith were dominating at this stage and a few minutes later a series of infringements given away by Inverleith led to their having a man sin binned after conceding a penalty in kickable range. Watters converted to put Leith 23-10 up going into the final quarter. The hosts looking demoralised, it didn’t take long for another try to come after Winton was alert in fielding an unchased kick to touch and took the opportunity for a quick lineout, throwing in to Burgess who in turn fed Dannfald. Kenny drew the defender and gave Smith another one-on-one with his opposing winger. Craig chipped over the top and beat the chasing defence to the bouncing ball to regather and score for a 28-10 lead. Fellow winger Robertson was soon to get in on the act and after Burgess sniped round the blind side and fed him the ball he too chipped over the cover defence to regather and touch down near the posts for Leith's fifth try, converted by Watters for a 35-10 lead. Two tries which came from Leith playing at pace, keeping the ball alive and stretching the defence to create gaps - what we have been working on for much of the season.

Disappointingly, having defended honestly when required throughout most of the game, Leith were to concede two soft tries in quick succession to close out the match, with the Inverleith right winger finishing off some good hands, before their openside went over untouched after an outrageous dummy. Leith did have a chance to add further points to their tally when Watters stabbed the ball through the Inverleith defence allowing Dannfald to kick the ball on towards the line, winning the foot race to the ball, but rather than picking up to score he kicked it one more time sedning it the other side of the post from himself. Despite his protestations to the ref, players, coaches, support and anyone who would listen it was adjudged that the ball was not touched against the base of the post and the try was not awarded. Despite everyone a few people agreeing a try should have been awarded, it was not and the final score would be 35-22.

Final Score: Inverleith 22 - 35 Leith

It was pleasing to get one over on our rivals at their home patch, something we haven’t been able to do in a while, however the team were slightly disappointed by the scoreline, having conceded the latter two scores, and blown a couple of other opportunities ourselves. Nevertheless, the sizeable travelling support went away happy with a 5-try derby victory.

Scorers:

Tries – Craig Smith (2), Craig Winton (1), Dave Robertson (1) & Kenny Dannfald (1.5)

Conversions – Doug Watters (2)

Penalties – Doug Watters (2)

MOTM - Ben Wilkinson & Willie Cook

Team:

15 Kenny Dannfald, 14 Dave Robertson, 13 Ross Marwick, 12 Doug Watters (c), 11 Craig Smith, 10 Ben Wilkinson, 9 Ryan Burgess

1 Craig Winton, 2 Willie Cook, 3 Colin Marshall, 4 Neil Paterson, 5 Mark Phillips, 6 Pete Mitchell, 7 Greg Hancock, 8 Andy MacIntosh

16 David Montgomery, 17 Cal McKay, 18 Paul Allison, 19 Kyle Gow, 20 Andrew Paterson, 21 George Nixon, 22 Stefano De Palma, 23 Daniel Garrido Cordoba.