Boroughmuir 29 - 18 Stirling County: Boroughmuir top but big tests are on their way

FIVE games down and Boroughmuir now sit alone at the top of Premier One, and there were glimpses of evidence in this four-try defeat of Stirling that they are a better side than that of recent seasons.

• Boroughmuir's Malcolm Clapperton makes a charge

But there is a tangible air of nervousness around Meggetland. 'Glimpses' have been sufficient to overcome teams struggling in the lower half of the league table, but there are enough older heads around this part of Edinburgh to remember what title triumphs felt like, and what it took to claim them.

We were just weeks into 2008 when Boroughmuir last were crowned Premier One champions down at Ayr and many recall the championship winners of 2003 as a fine side. Those with longer memories hark back to the 1990-91 season and remember how the Grand Slam celebrations continued to flow around south Edinburgh as a Boroughmuir team, with one SRP Lineen in their ranks, brought the first official Division One title to Meggetland.

No-one knows yet whether this team has what it takes to join those winners, but everybody expects the next six weeks to hold the key. Phil Smith, assistant coach to Fergus Pringle, is looking forward to the trips to Currie, Melrose and Heriot's, and visits from Ayr, Dundee HSFP, and Glasgow Hawks before the split. If only because he is getting fed up of watching videos of his side playing in fits and starts.

"It has not been pretty watching Saturday's game," he said yesterday, after two re-runs.

"The first possession we had we kept the ball for nine phases and then Ali Warnock walked in. We then presented the ball to Stirling for the next 20 minutes because we seemed incapable of getting out of our half when the wind was blowing.

"Our defence, which has been good all season, kept us in it. Then we get a second possession and we score again. In the second half, a bit of magic from our winger, Robbie Cairns, and we score, and then we get our fourth try from eight or nine phases of possession.

"But other than that, it was like watching schoolchildren play; throwing it here, knocking it on there, kicking it straight to them. All the things I would tell children not to do, we invariably did. If we just learn to play like adults we could potentially do well."

That was a pretty accurate summation.

Boroughmuir struggled throughout the bring structure to a game in which their set-piece was good.But if that was an honest reflection of the hosts' performance, which yielded a comfortable win, what on earth were County up to?

"Missed tackles, missed penalties, gifting points to them, basic error after basic error," replied an exasperated Eddie Pollock, their head coach, struggling to comprehend the 80 minutes in a lengthy after-match debrief.

"There have been plenty of times I've come here not expecting much, but this time we had a real opportunity to take points. We played very poorly but were still in it if we'd kicked our goals and not handed them a soft try at the start of the second half.

"You'd be disappointed if a kids team played as we did today. We had a soft mentality. Yes, we have a lot of young players, but they have got to grow up, toughen up, if we're going to finish in the top eight."

It was a common theme - 'kids' - and perhaps is unsurprising because there were a lot of young players on show, and while County's under-20 fly-half Stuart Edwards did not enjoy his best day, missing a handful of kicks at goal, he is clearly talented, as young full-back Robbie McGowan while 'Muir's teenage props, Robin Hislop and Nick Fraser, were among their best players.

Hislop scored a well-worked try, one of four excellent touchdowns, two in either half, from a team that clearly knows how to finish when it holds onto ball, Warnock, Cairns and Andrew Rose scoring the others. But Tyler Edwards finished a cracking try by Stirling before the break and McGowan, who sparked that one, provided the final surge to score another in the last seconds.

So entertaining and scoring is not the problem, the maturity to realise how to bring control to their play perhaps is. Such is the level of talent, however, no-one should underestimate these teams ability to improve.

"That is the key now," added Smith. "As a coach you find out about your team when they have to step up a level. So far we have. We went behind to Watsonians and Hawick and turned it up, and against County we scored when we needed to.

"We have played the teams that, with all honesty, we hoped to beat and now we have to beat the teams we want to beat if we're to challenge for the title."

Smith added that they would also be looking again at the second half incident when back row Derek O'Riordan struck Ben Addison with his knee at a ruck, forcing the County player off the field and sparking heated arguments among supporters, and speaking with Stirling before deciding if further action is necessary.

Scorers: Boroughmuir: Tries: Warnock, Hislop, Cairns, Rose. Pen: Leonard. Cons: Warnock 3. Stirling County: Tries: T Edwards, McGowan. Pens: Hope, S Edwards. Con: S Edwards.

Boroughmuir: S Ruddick; R Cairns, M Clapperton (capt), S Wilson, R Neill; A Warnock, S Johnson; R Hislop, S Crombie, N Fraser, T McColl, A Davidson, A Rose, C Fusaro, J Doubleday.Subs: D O'Riordan for McColl 40mins, H Leonard for Warnock 60, McColl for Rose 64, J Latta for Hislop 65, C MacIntosh for Crombie, M Buchan for Johnson, both 75.

Stirling County: R McGowan; G Lindsay, D Gilmour, J Hope, B Addison; S Edwards, S Kennedy; M McDonald, A Moffat, G Mountford, T Edwards, G Gilchrist, C Eadie, T Clarke, C Deacons. Subs: C Black for Mountford, S Robertson for Eadie, B Archibald for Hope, G Calder for Kennedy, all 60mins, Mountford for McDonald 78.

Referee: A McMenemy.