Leith earn home victory

Leith locked horns with Lismore at the weekend for the 4th time in the season. This time however was in a more friendly fashion with both teams at a loose end due to the international fixtures. With many of both squads off to Murrayfield for the Scotland fixture and 11am kick off time was decided on. A good idea at the time but with a few members of the squad generally coming home from nights out from the previous night, not so good on game day!

Still after a bit of early Lismore pressure Leith started to exert themselves on the game making hard yards and putting Lismore under pressure within their own half. Pressure finally told when from a tap penalty a few yards out the ball was sent wide leaving the versatile returning forward Colin Marshall to draw the last man and put Ross Kilgour over for his first try of 2015. More pressure to the Lismore attack led to Leith getting some easy ball, A few rumbles up the pitch which gave stand off Ben Wilkinson the chance to put captain for the day Craig Winton 1 on 1 against the opposition 12, Winton beat his man and touched down from 5m.

The final score of the half was the pick of the bunch. Having waited so long for a try in 2015, winger Ross Kilgour was rewarded with his 2nd for the day. Taking a short pop from stand off Ben Wilkinson around the half way line, Kilgour used pace, power and some nimble footwork to firstly evade the tackles in the centre before rounding the full back to score. Doug Waters added the extras putting the half time score at 17-0.

With a number of changes being made throughout the first half and at half time the fluency of the game was being constantly interrupted meaning it was hard to really build up any phases or consistency in the play. Still at half time Leith knew they were in a game and this was far from over.

Lismore duly obliged to further remind Leith of this by scoring shortly after half time. However Rory Clarke, up from London for the weekend, was on hand shortly after to finish off some good work at ruck time by Andrew Paterson . Once again Waters added the conversion to bring the score to 24-7. It was becoming a bit tit for tat when Lismore crossed the white wash again after defensive errors but some more changes on both sides once again broke up the play and made it hard for either side to really build.

On the last play of the game Craig Smith went through a gap into the Lismore 22m and was able to set Ross Marwick up with the simplest of chances to finish the game off with a score in the corner. Full time 29-12.

Overall a good run out and a worthwhile exercise to try people in different positions and combinations. Our thanks go to an ever improving Lismore for the game and the referee for stepping in on fairly short notice to take the whistle.

Tries – Kilgour (2), Clarke, Winton, Marwick

Convs – Waters (2)

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