Stirling County 10 - 24 Heriot's: Heriot's raid Stirling for a fiver

The comedian Bernard Manning used to joke that the definition of mixed emotions was watching your mother-in-law drive your brand new Jaguar over a cliff.

Dunfermline stalwart Jim Leishman tells a cruder, and very much funnier, adaptation of the same story and Bob McKillop now has his own version after watching Saturday's match against the club he used to coach.

His side had come away with maximum points for the second weekend in succession but still the Heriot's boss couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry.

"I was happy to get five points on the road but I'm still a little bit frustrated by our performance," McKillop admitted afterwards. "We had peaks and troughs in the game but there are too many troughs at the moment. These guys won on the road last weekend so I am pretty happy to go home with five points… but there is still a little bit of frustration.

"I had huge doubts about the final outcome for much of the game. At half-time when the game was 10-7 in our favour we called for a much greater enthusiasm. I thought we were going through the phases but weren't really going anywhere. We were going from side to side but there was no killer punch, there was no spark. We wanted someone to stick their hand up and say 'follow me', and I don't know if we really got it."

In fairness the dynamo prop forward Alan Dymock led from the front, Peter Eccles worked his socks off and No 8 Struan Dewar was always in the thick of things even if his handling at the base of the scrum left something to be desired. But most of Heriot's tries owed more to individual panache than any sort of collective team excellence.

Fly-half Gregor Hunter and full-back Colin Goudie combined beautifully to carve out some space in the shadow of the County posts and when the ball was recycled Eccles had a clear run to the left hand corner.

The visitors' second came straight off the training ground, the two wingers combining to send Greg Walker over in the opposite corner and put a smile on the face of Heriot's new backs coach Mark Appleson.

When centre Max Learmonth touched down early in the second half the match was all but over and everyone waited for the floodgates to open.It didn't happen.

A mixture of doughty Stirling defence and some hapless finishing from the visitors meant that Heriot's fourth try didn't emerge until four minutes before the final whistle.

For their part Stirling opened the scoring when Sean Kennedy charged down Hunter's clearance and the little scrum-half was first to the bouncing ball to sprint home from 30 yards out.

Edwards' conversion put his team seven points ahead after five minutes and the fly-half also kicked a penalty five minutes from time to give his side brief hope of a losing bonus point, but County never really looked like adding to their tally for the 70 minutes in between.

Stirling will be stronger when coach Eddie Pollock can call upon his first choice forwards - half his pack was missing yesterday - and so too Heriot's will improve when they put their minds to it. With Currie, Ayr and Melrose to face in successive weeks, they will need to.

Scorers: County: Try: Kennedy. Con: Edwards. Pen: Edwards.

Heriot's: Tries: Eccles, Walker, Learmonth, Dymock. Con: Wilson (2).

Stirling County: McGowan; Lindsay, Addison, Gilmour, Donegan; Edwards, Kennedy; Hunter, Moffat, Mountford, Edwards, Rae, Eadie, Clarke, Bersanti. Subs: Morrison, Simpson, Mountford, McRorie, Hope.

Heriot's: Goudie; Walker, Learmonth, Saunders, Nimmo; Hunter, Wilson; Dymock, Burnett, Cameron, Martin, Reid, Dewar, Lee, Eccles. Subs: K Bryce, Ward, Parker, Ferguson, G Bryce.

Referee: Van der Merwe.