Leith 31 - 22 Kinross

Match Report by Kevin Greenan

After a challenging pre-season programme, Friday night brought a first opportunity to put everything that had been worked upon put into practice, as Leith welcomed Kinross RFC to Academy Park. The men from The Muirs have provided friendly opposition many times in recent years, and it was great to be able to welcome them to Academy Park once again.

Leith got off to a really quick start, and after winning a turnover from the kickoff, the forwards started working through the new structures committing Kinross to use up more players in defence. Standoff Ben Wilkinson took the ball to the line and put centre Doug Watters through a huge hole in the Kinross midfield, Watters drawing the fullback and sending his own 15, Andrew Baxter in for a try 2 minutes into his club debut. Conversion missed by Wilkinson.

The Leith pack continued to go through the phases, freeing up the backs to attack the ball at speed, and some slick passing at halfway resulted in Andrew Baxter stepping away from two defenders and outsprinting the cover defence for his second try inside 10 minutes. Wilkinson adding the extras for a 12-0 lead.

At the 20-minute mark Leith made 13 changes, and allowed Kinross back into the game. Honeypotting defenders, perhaps eager to impress following their introduction saw Leith numbers down out wide and Kinross went over in the corner. The home side started to re-exert control soon after however, and after some great controlled play from the forwards, centre Jon Derrin crashed through the midfield, holding off 3 defenders to score between the posts. Conversion successful from Wilkinson. Kinross then added their second try after a crossfield kick was caught at midfield and their supporting centre given a great inside ball to race away into the corner for a half time score of 19-10 to the home side.

Leith made more changes at half time, and after a talking to from the coach, Leith started out strong with the forwards taking more control of the game. Scrumhalf Fergal MacNamara made a good break but after fixing the defender he did not release the pass deciding to cut back inside and was tackled short on the five-metre line. Leith recycled the ball, and went through the phases pulling in Kinross defence. McNamara gave a pass to Robert Stitt with the try line within reach, but the ball was knocked on. Leith continued to go through phases through forwards and backs eventually releasing Andrew Paterson in space on the wing allowing him to run in for a score from 30 metres. George Less missing the conversion.

Leith started to get a bit disjointed in defence again leading to Kinross creating an overlap to score in the corner. It became a bit of an arm wrestle between both sets of forwards at the contact area, with Leith losing out resulting in Kinross creating another score with successful conversion. With the game coming to an end Leith regained control at the breakdown, and after working the ball through a couple of rucks, standoff Wilkinson stepped inside the cover defence to handoff the fullback and dive over for the last try of the game, which he successfully converted for a final score of 31-22 to Leith.

Check out the highlights from the game here.

All in a great first hit out for Leith as they build towards the new season, and an opening league fixture at Hawick Linden on September 8th. Best wishes to Kinross RFC for their own campaign in Caledonian Midlands Division 2.