Shinty: Stew-Mel book place in league play-offs

Stewart’s Melville’s 29-18 win against Hillhead Jordanhill at Inverleith makes them almost certain winners of the RBS Premier 2 league before the play-off split thus ensuring a place in the battle which RBS Premier 2’s top four will have with the bottom four from Premier 1 to decide which two sides will be in next season’s smaller Premier 1.

Stew-Mel ran in four tries, one each from Hayden Lingard, Richard Borthwick, Mike Hanning and Robert Patterson. Hills replied with a couple of tries from Hadden McPherson and one from Chris Butler but missed the bonus point. Stew-Mel go into the final two league matches before the split undefeated. Jed are still second despite losing at Philiphaugh to Selkirk by 28-15, having pulled themselves back into the game from 18-0 down at half-time. But two tries from Fraser Harkness and one from Greg Patterson was enough for the home side to secure fifth spot in the table and leave them still in with an outside chance of making the play-offs.

Despite Hamilton’s 24-16 win over Whitecraigs at Laigh Bent, thanks to tries from Chris Stannage and John Selfridge with a conversion and four penalties from Ross Ingles, they still drop to fourth place as Watsonians clinched a bonus point against Falkirk which gives them a one point lead over Hamilton. With a 43-7 half-time lead, Watsonians were never going to be caught at Sunnyside and although they didn’t add to that score in the second half, two tries each from Ben di Rollo, Paul Tuala and Chris Scott and one for Marcus di Rollo, with Brian Walls converting four, gave them a 43-21 win, third spot and an almost certain top four place.

West edged it by a single point at Burnbrae over Peebles, their 22-21 win containing two tries from Neil Herron and one from Simon Kay, but Peebles pulled back from 19-8 down at half time and almost grabbed the points. Two tries from Neil Hogarth and one from Andy Brown with a couple of penalties from Neil Warnock, who missed all three conversions, at least earned the bonus point, which was more than Kelso could do as they crashed by 39-3 to seven-try Biggar at Hartreemill.