Forbes leads way as Currie ‘guts it out’

Ally Donaldson was visibly – and justifiably – thrilled at the outcome of this clash with his local rivals. The Currie coach saw his side outplay their near-neighbours in a typically full-on derby in which Jamie Forbes was the leading light.

“I’m really delighted with the character we showed because this was a very strong Boroughmuir team,” said Donaldson. “We lost Andrew Binikos [discolated shoulder] after 20 minutes and that was a huge blow to us as we had to do a lot of reorganising. Andrew was the guy we could least afford to lose, as it took a lot of the structure out of our play. After that we had a lot of guys playing out of position and we had to regroup. We had to guts it out but we did that.”

The departure of Binikos may have been a major loss, but Forbes stepped up to the plate to put in a match-winning performance. The full-back scored all his team’s points, kicking two first-half penalties for a narrow interval lead, then showing real sharpness to pounce on a charged-down ball that sat up invitingly.

Midway through the second period, he extended Currie’s lead with a further brace of kicks before Jamie Swanson notched a consolation score for Boroughmuir that Ally Warnock converted with little time left.

However, it was only fitting that the final word went to Forbes as he nudged over the last score of the game to complete a memorable personal performance and see his side home with something to spare.

Scorers: Currie – Try: Forbes. Pens: Forbes (5). Boroughmuir – Try: Swanson. Con: Warnock.

Currie: J Forbes; B Mansfield, J Johnstone, A McMahon, A Whittingham; A Binikos, R Snedden; J Cox, F Gillies, C Phillips, S Marcell, G Temple, M Cairns, M Entwhistle, R Weston. Replacements: F Scott, A Best, M Peacock, C Leck, M Erskine.

Boroughmuir: A Warnock; S Visser, M Clapperton, S Wilson, J Webster; H Leonard, S Johnston; R Hislop, S Crombie, L Niven, M Harvey, G Scott, N Roger, A Rose, I Moody. Raplacements: C Mackintosh, N Fraser, J Swanson, M Crawley, H Jones.

Referee: S Lewis.