Poor showing in season's 1st derby

On the back of the previous weeks defeat, Leith were aiming to get their East 2 League campaign back on track at rivals Inverleith.

Leith, playing up the slope, had an early spell of possession and territory deep into the Inverleith 22m. However we were kept at bay by some poor decision making, less than clinical execution of skills and resolute defending. This gave Inverleith some confidence which allowed them to assert themselves on the game more than before. The game embedded between the 22m lines with no more than the odd half chance for either side to take the lead. The mistakes and penalty count were starting to take there toll and it was Inverleith who drew first blood. 7-0 to the hosts at the break.

Leith were more than disappointed as they knew they only had themselves to blame for a poor first half display. In half where they had more than enough possession to make it count on the scoreboard and it would require a big performance to turn it around. However despite this Leith started the 2nd half less than impressively. Failing to secure the restart and retain possession, Inverleith were allowed to pick and go, offload and support all the way to the Leith line. A very soft and disappointing score to concede so soon after halftime. Although the conversion was missed and Leith knew that there was still more than a good chance to get back into the match.

The match was then to take an unfortunate twist. As Blair Skipper jinked his way over the line, the ball slipped out of his hand and in the process of putting the ball down he collided with one of the Inverleith men. The opposition player caught the collision badly and it was clear that he was quite seriously injured, the match was temporally suspended while we waited for an ambulance and our medical teams worked to make our opposition player as comfortable as possible (we have since heard that he is fine, if a little stiff and Inverleith have passed on their thanks to Pete, Claire and Amanda for the help they offered).

The game restarted around 30 minutes later and it was again that Inverleith took the impetus. Leith couldn’t retain possession for any length of time, again this allowed our hosts to move their way into our 22m. A couple of ruck infringements later and we gave Inverleith the chance to kick a few penalties which they duly obliged, we also lost our second row Peitro to a yellow card for his infringement at ruck time. So at 18 – 0 and unable to keep possession for any meaningful length of time it wasn’t looking good for Leith to bounce back and get the win.

Although after Blair Skipper fed Kenny Dannfald*, the ball inside his own 22m area, a mazy effort in which he was able to beat a number of defenders on the way to the try line. Dannfald then took the quick drop kick conversion to bring the score to 18 – 7 with around 20 minutes to go, it looked as if the Leith men could use this as a platform to build on. However much like the story of the rest of the game this wasn’t to be the case. Failure to defend a lineout 5 metres from our line gave Inverleith another try and conversion which was the final blow for a Leith side who never really got going.

What promised to be a game to get our league campaign back on track ultimately turned out to be a disappointing result. We look ahead to next weeks Ladies Day game against Penicuik to get things back on track

Final Score: Inverleith 25 - 7 Leith

*Kenny Dannfald is sponsored by Little Lovelies Bakery.

Scoring

Try – Kenny Dannfald

Conv – Kenny Dannfald

MOTM – Doddie McHardy