Heriot's 20 - 16 Currie: Heriot's shock champions with their killer instinct and dogged defensive work

After racing into a 20-0 lead in the first quarter thanks to three tries, the home side spent much the remaining 60 minutes of the match in increasingly desperate defence as Currie mounted the comeback that was always going to appear sooner or later. In years gone by Heriot's would have lost this match but this squad has some steel in the spine and Bob McKillop called it the best defensive performance that he has witnessed in the five years he has been coaching at Goldenacre.

Currie gave their hosts a helping hand as flyhalf Matt Scott had an afternoon to forget. He gave away two interceptions that led almost immediately to Heriot's tries and then he passed the ball along the deck and the host team snaffled it up to score again. Apart from that the young flyhalf had a good game, he even scored one try himself, but it rather misses the point. Scott's first interception was snapped up by prop Wullie Blacklock who set off upfield even if he never really looked like going the full distance and, sure enough, the Currie flyhalf reeled him in short of the line. But in the very next play full back Colin Goudie found a gap in the Currie defence and went over for the first try.

Struan Dewar grabbed the second interception, for Max Learmonth to wriggle over a little later and then Goudie again benefited from Scott's charity to race in from 40 yards after the flyhalf threw a horrible pass to no-one in particular. With skipper Graham Wilson adding a conversion and a penalty, Heriot's had 20 points. Currie finally woke from their slumbers, grabbing two tries of their own from No 8 Ross Weston and Scott just before half-time. They further narrowed the gap with two second-half penalties from winger Hayden Abercrombie but that was the sum total of scoring after the break.

Wilson was wide with a couple of penalties that would have allowed the Goldenacre crowd to breath a little easier as Currie pounded at the Heriot's line for much of the second half.

"We gifted Heriot's 20 points in a crazy ten-minute spell with two interceptions and one pass along the ground that was picked up by them," said a phlegmatic Currie coach Ally Donaldson."It's very difficult to give teams a 20-point start and then come back from that. I think we showed enormous character to do what we did. I am really proud of the way we played because Heriot's defended exceptionally well. To come back and score 16 points to nil shows that there wasn't a whole long wrong with the performance apart from that crazy ten minutes."

"We have had opportunities to win all three games and I think we had about 70 percent of possession today but confidence is a magical thing and little things are making a big difference, whereas last year we were getting away with mistakes."

Donaldson will need to do something to boost his club's confidence in time for next Saturday, when league leaders Glasgow Hawks head to Malleny Park.