Bonus point winning start to the season.

Leith’s season got under way with a hard fought 31-0 victory away to Liberton. With the team not having played any games in pre-season there were concerns about rustiness.
A number of players had to play out of position, with Grant Aitken standing in well at Inside Centre, Daniel Berger playing on the wing and Richard Hasting filling in a fullback
The first half was a scrappy if not long affair with 40 minutes playing time actually taking 56 minutes to complete. This was from large number of scrums being reset and lineout’s being pinged for crooked throw-ins. Despite having the smaller pack Leith had the better of the exchanges at scrum time and were able to steal a number put ins against the head. The Leith pack were also able to drive Liberton back in the maul as well. Leith did score from the one good piece of handling, with the forwards controlling possession of the ball which was then feed out to the backs. Craig Smith fired out a miss pass to Gareth Marshall who offloaded in the tackle to Richard Hastings coming to the line from Fullback. Richard drew his man and offloaded to Rory Clark in space on the wing, who rounded his man and crossed the try line for the only try of the first half. Gareth Marshall added the two points for the conversion. 7-0 half time.
The second half began with Leith kicking off up the hill and the style of play continued that of the first half with the Leith pack having the better of the exchanges and forcing the Liberton pack into conceding a penalty which Marshall slot over to increase the lead to 10-0. With Grant Aitken making yards from his unfamiliar position of 12 and the Leith pack driving play into the Liberton twenty-two, the second try o f the game was scored. The forwards again securing the ball and Bruce Tyler feeding Craig Smith from scrum half. With decoy runners in support Smith dummied a pass back inside and went through the gap and touched down under the posts. Marshall added the extras for a 17-0 lead.
With Leith have the better of the territory Liberton tried to kick themselves out of trouble. Richard Hastings coped well under the high ball and made good yards returning clearing kicks. However it was one of these clearing kicks that resulted in Liberton conceding a third try. Scrappy ball from a line out saw a Liberton forward gather the ball in his own twenty-two, run sideways across the pitch and attempt to kick clear, resulting in a cross field slice. Daniel Berger playing on the left wing fielded the ball well, evaded two defenders cut back infield and off loaded to Marshall who cut back inside the covering defence and crossed the try line under the posts. Marshall converted his own try to move the score to 25-0.
With time running out Leith managed to score their 4 try bonus point with Craig Smith scoring a carbon copy of his first. The forwards again securing possession, B Tyler with the pass and C Smith dummying an inside pass to Aitken to sail in under the posts untouched with G Marshall once again adding the extra two.
Final Score Liberton 0 – Leith 31
Tries:
R Clark
C Smith x 2
G Marshall
Conversions:
G Marshall x 4
Penalties:
G Marshall