Leith 35 - 11 Dunbar

Match Report by Nick Andrews

Leith and Dunbar had battled twice already this season. Dunbar taking the victory in the Cup and Leith taking the spoils in the first league meeting between the two sides in Dunbar. The East Lothian side travelled to the capital looking to spoil Leith’s promotion ambitions, having proven to be a major party pooper for the Leith men in last seasons finale where Dunbar took the points with a 36-35 victory.

This was expected to be Leith’s final game of the season, but horrendous weather over the passed month or so had postponed so many games that Langholm were still to make the journey up. Leith knew what they had to do against Dunbar to ensure that the Langholm visit was a do or die.

Dunbar kicked off with the wind behind them and made their intentions known from the off. As expected, they brought physical carrying and tackling to the party. It wasn’t before long that Dunbar crossed in the corner for a try. Leith had been known to start off slow and Dunbar made sure to exploit this. After the try, they followed up with two penalties to put the score at 11-0 after 15 minutes.

Kenny got Leith on the board with a penalty of his own after 17 mins. Leith were beginning to find their feet and Dunbar were committing plenty of infringements at the ruck.

On 24 minutes, Leith had a scrum just inside the Dunbar half. The forwards won the ball back and Dave Sommerville quickly shipped the ball out the back. The ball went through the hands to Josh Campey who sucked in a defender before popping the ball to Andrew Baxter who entered the line at pace. Baxter beat the first defender and then ran around the fullback to score under the posts. A standard Baxter try that could quite well be nominated for try of the season. Kenny added the extras and the score was now 11-10 to Dunbar.

Half Time: Dunbar 11-10.

With the wind now behind them, Leith were looking to move up a gear and finish the job.

Kenny added another penalty to his tally after 44 minutes making the score 14-13.

Leith worked their way back into the Dunbar 22 and won a scrum on the 5m line. A well executed move off the training park resulted in Jamie Drummond picking up at the back and popping to Dave who passed to Ross Marwick who out sprinted for an easy score in the corner. Marwick adding to his massive tally of tries this season. Kenny missed the conversion, but he would make up for it later.

Another penalty kick to Leith had the score at 21-14. Leith with a firm handle on the match. Dunbar were making lots of silly mistakes and the referee was losing his patience.

Dunbar restarted and the ball worked its way wide. Ivan passed to Kenny who threw an audacious dummy that Craig Smith would be proved of and ran straight through a gap. The full back hit Kenny but somehow wasn’t able to stop him. Kenny pirouetted around the tackle attempt, threw another dummy then proceeded to step one of the covering defenders before adding a brutal hand off to the scrum half before crossing the line for what will be the bookies favourite for try of the season, although the 2s may have something to say about that. Kenny converted his own try, because he is a beast.

To make matters worse for Dunbar, one of their replacement props was shown a red card. To make matters even worse, minutes later, the Dunbar winger deliberately prevented Leith from taking a quick penalty and was shown a yellow card.

The final score of the game came from a great box kick from replacement scrum half Fergal MacNamara. The kick went deep and both Andrew Paterson and Nick Andrews were in hot pursuit. The bounce of the ball wasn’t kind to either of the Leith players or the Dunbar player. The Dunbar player made the error of pulling the jersey of Paterson when it was pretty certain he was going to recover the ball and score. The ball didn’t find his hands and was spilled forward before Andrews was able to touch it down. The referee did notice the jersey pull back and headed straight under the posts to award a penalty try. Unfortunately for Andrew and Nick, no one gets the credit for the try.

A hard battle in the 1st half but a brilliant performance from Leith in the second half. Dunbar are never an easy team to play against so it was a massive shift from all 22 boys. Leith welcome Langholm in two weeks to determine their future whether they will play in East 2 or East 1 next season.

Stay tuned.