Late drama as Boroughmuir take capital derby spoils

Boroughmuir's David Reekie runs into Ross Aitken and Matt Poole of Watsonians. Picture: Neil Hanna

In what was a great advert for Scottish club rugby - a crowd of over 500 watching two old rivals go at it from the very first whistle - replacement back Wilson managed to find a gap in the ‘Sonians defence to score the winning try despite ‘Muir being down to 14 men at that stage.

The try, converted by stand-off David Reekie, came in injury time and sparked jubilant celebrations amongst the home support who have now seen their team win seven matches from seven under the new coaching team of Bruce Aitchison and Ben Fisher. Wilson said: “I think we got a bit nervous in the last 10 minutes and fair play to Watsonians they battled back to 25-25. However, we kept going and when Malcolm [Clapperton] found a bit of space I was just delighted to take the pass from him and go round the last man to go over.

“That ending really typified the spirit that we have built up so far this season and to keep our unbeaten run going is great. Hopefully the try will also help me force my way into the starting line-up in the coming weeks.”

For Watsonians this was their second late defeat on the spin and they will need to regroup quickly to keep their title hopes alive.

In this one their pack gave them a good platform to work from and they undoubtedly have talent in the backs, but they gave away three tries while they had a man advantage and that will have irked head coach Marcus Di Rollo.

Boroughmuir came out flying from the kick off and by the 19th minute they were 13-0 up thanks to tries from Reekie and scrum-half Sam Johnson and a penalty by Reekie. Watsonians came back into things thanks to a converted Mark Rennie try and a penalty by skipper Mike Ker and when ‘Muir’s Joni Hare was sin-binned just before the break things were set up nicely at 13-10.

It was the home side - with 14 men - who started the second half as they had done the first though. In the 43rd minute centre Clapperton managed to go over and then two minutes later fellow centre Alex Cox showed great desire to pounce on a bouncing ball before feeding the impressive full-back Craig Marshall for the bonus point try.

That double hit could have knocked the stuffing out of ‘Sonians, but with the pack getting on the front foot and a re-jigged backline starting to fire they were just eight points behind when the hosts’ second-row Greg Scott was yellow carded after 71 minutes. A try by centre Scott McKean soon followed before a Ker penalty levelled things up at 25-25 after 78 minutes before the late drama gave Boroughmuir the victory.