Leith travelled to newly-promoted Inverleith for the first taste of league action for the season. The sun was shining, and the wind wasn’t blowing. A typical mid-July day, however, this was September. The Leith boys resolved during their warmup to enjoy this weather as we will be playing on muddy pitches and avoiding frozen ground very soon. There was plenty of running rugby to come.

Leith received the ball, facing into the sun, to start their league campaign. The ball was well taken, and the Leith forwards ran into contact. The first period of play had both teams stating their intent. Leith were looking to throw the ball around and Inverleith were sending powerful runners into the Leith defence. Leith had to make an early change after 8 minutes. Recently ex flatmates, [your author] Nick Andrews and Andrew Baxter both tackled an Inverleith player short of the line and clashed heads. Baxter was taken off for a HIA and unfortunately for Leith the referee made the decision that he was not to return to the game. Much to the frustration of Baxter who appeared to be perfectly fine. Andrews, while a little dazed, carried on with the match.

Only minutes later, after some clean ball from the forwards, Ross Johnston spotted a gap in the defence and darted through with a quick pass to blindside flanker, Marcos Teixeira who was on his shoulder. Teixeira drew the defender and passed the ball inside to Andrews, who sprinted round the last defender and scored under the posts. The head knock appeared to have had no effect, if anything it had improved his rugby brain for a few moments! Johnston slotted the conversion. Leith 7-0.

Leith were setting the tone early and were applying all sorts of pressure on the Inverleith lads. However, small defensive issues from Leith allowed Inverleith to answer back quickly with a nice move in the centres to allow the 12 to walk under the posts untouched. Tied game 7-7.

On 16 minutes Inverleith attempted a clearing kick. The ball landed in the hands of Max Bowman on the wing, who tried to emulate Finn Russell with a long, ridiculous, unnecessary, outrageous (you catch my drift) pass infield. The ball bounced up nicely and was collected by Josh Campey who fixed the last defender and passed to Ben Wilkinson on the wing. Wilkinson shrugged off the covering defence and dotted the ball down on the line. Johnston again made the conversion. Leith 14-7.

The Leith forward pack had been emphasising their lineouts at training while the backs had been practising posing for the camera. The lineout drills paid off as a move straight off the training paddock worked a charm and Neil Paterson crashed over for the score. No conversion this time. Leith 19-7.

The next “scoring” play came shortly after. Leith were continuing to apply all sorts of pressure and the backs were finding holes in the Inverleith defensive line. Pressing towards the Inverleith line, Teixeira picked the ball up from a ruck and dived for the corner, dragging two Inverleith boys with him. Teixeira was jubilant but saw the touch judges’ flag was raised. “Good score, yes?!” he cried. Only to find out that he had dived on the 5m line and had clearly not scored any try, he had in fact given the ball back to Inverleith. Teixeira would win Dick of the Day for his blunder!

Leith never looked in any trouble at all. The forwards were dominating at the scrum, allowing quick ball for Andrews. Another scrum win had the ball played out to the backs quickly and into the hands of Greg Jackson who proceeded to throw a class Craig Smith esque dummy pass and dart between the defenders and under the posts unopposed. Another successful conversion from Johnston followed. 26-7 Leith.

Inverleith answered straight away with slick hands and sent their big winger away in the corner for the score. Leith 26-12.

On the stroke of half time, Leith were awarded a penalty in front of the posts. Captain Jamie Drummond opted to kick for goal. Johnston doesn’t miss from those positions, so he took the kick with his eyes closed. Leith 29-12 at half time.

If Leith were the 1st half winners, it was not to be the same in the 2nd half. They began the 2nd half where they left off, applying lots of pressure on the Inverleith defensive line. Bad decision-making kept Leith from making any forward progress. Inverleith found themselves charging up the wing with fullback Doug Watters covering. Watters smashed the boy into touch, but the ref deemed it to be a no arms tackle and he was given a yellow card. Being short-handed didn’t cause any issues for Leith as they allowed 0 points during the 10 minutes Watters was off the pitch.

Leith got another 3 points from the boot of Johnston to put the score at 32-12 to Leith.

Inverleith turned it up a gear while Leith began to fall a little flat. Inverleith were beginning to cause lots of issues for the defence and parked themselves on the Leith line for a period. Inverleith popped it blind and looked to have scored but Shaun Guesford was on hand to hold the ball up and prevent a certain try. Leith were able to clear their lines. Johnston was punting the ball downfield for fun. One kicked went right down to the Inverleith line. The winger caught the ball and decided to run it out, where Paul Haggon was on hand to hit the life out of the poor boy. Haggon went to the sin bin for his tackle.

Inverleith made sure to exploit this power play and crossed the try line after working their way up the pitch. 32-19 to Leith.

In the dying minutes Inverleith exploited the Leith defence once more and crossed for their bonus point try. 32-26 to Leith.

Leith had one final play to get another score on the board but Inverleith held strong and the game finished 32-26 in favour of the away team. A hard-fought battle between the two sides with Leith dominant in patches but completely exposed in others. We will take the bonus point win. Leith welcome Trinity to Academy Park next week for the big derby match!

Man of the Match: Scott McAteer (although I didn’t mention him once, so did he really deserve it?)