West of Scotland 33 - 49 Heriot's: West pay for early slackness

THE half-time whistle at Burnbrae saw the West of Scotland players scuttle from the field. The pitch was in excellent shape, which ruled out a change of jerseys, but it wasn't until after the match that coach John Beattie explained that skipper Dave Young had decided a private pep talk was required to fire up the struggling side.

Beattie said: "We had started off really badly, so Dave decided he wanted to get all the players together."

So badly had West begun that they found themselves 19-0 down after only a quarter of an hour. Heriot's Jamie Syme, Colin Goudie and Jonny Alston had all touched down with Graham Wilson kicking two conversions.

By the break West had grabbed a couple of scores of their own through Creag Johnston and Mike Sim, who converted both. However, Heriot's had the bonus point thanks to Struan Dewar's try converted by Wilson, who had also kicked a penalty. That left West trailing 29-14.

Young's half-time rallying call, while not enough to swing the game in West's favour, at least saw them make more of a fight of things and Heriot's only 'won' the second-half 20-19. Most importantly for relegation-threatened West, however, tries from Graham Fisken, Richard Dalgleish and Calum Hastie gave them a bonus point.

Goudie and Max Nimmo took the final Heriot's try haul to six, with Wilson and Greig Rutherford each adding a conversion and a penalty.

Heriot's coach Rob McKillop said: "It's a sign of where we are now compared with early season that we scored 49 points away from home, yet in the huddle afterwards the boys weren't happy with things overall."

Scorers: West: Tries – Johnston, Sim, Fisken, Dalgleish, Hastie. Cons – Sim 4. Heriot's: Tries – Goudie 2, Syme, Alston, Dewar, Nimmo. Cons – Wilson 4, Rutherford 1. Pens – Wilson 2, Rutherford.

West of Scotland: M Sim; A Park, R Dalgleish, J Kerr, S Hunter; B Wright, G Taylor; C Hastie, G Bulloch, C Johnston, M Jenkinson, R McAlpine, J Walker, D Young G Fisken. Sub used: D McKenna.

Heriot's: C Goudie; J Alston, P Saunders, R Mill, M Nimmo; G Rutherford, G Wilson; A Dymock, F Gillies, W Blacklock, P O'Connor, C Osazuwa, J Hill, S Dewar, J Syme. Subs used: S Burnett, M Welch, S Johnson, A Douglas.

Referee: A McMenemy (Gala).