After the on/off/change venue/off again saga of this match over the weekend, it was quickly rescheduled for Monday night at Myreside under the lights.

The rain started along with the players coming out onto the pitch, so another miserable night watching a game of ‘drop the ball’ was anticipated. But, it wasn’t to be. For the first ten minutes the match was fairly even with just a penalty from either side to have the score standing at 3-3. Then it all seemed to go awry for Watsonians. Having their stand-off yellow carded for tripping, one he denied (and given that rugby players tend to accept the ref’s decision without the hystrionics that footballer resort to, he was probably justified), Watsonians appeared to fall apart.

The rest of the half – as the rain got heavier – was dominated by Accies, with Watsonians only popping into the equation to score a try, before Accies closed them down again and scored their fourth try of the half.

Their first three had all come in a five minute period following the yellow card. The first was a forward’s rumble over from a line-out (pictured), the second from open play and the third, under the posts, from ball passed inside after a ruck on the line. The four tries, plus a combination of kicks, put Accies ahead 30-10 when the referee blew up for half time.

The rain, if anything, got heavier as the second half opened. Whatever was said at half-time to Watsonians in the changing room worked wonders and they got stuck in right from the off. It didn’t take too long, however for the superior fire-power of the visitors to, once again, come to the fore.

Again they forced themselves upfield, but the defence held out and stopped the attacks on their line – literally on a couple of occasions. It was, however Watsonians who were to score the only points of the half. A penalty from their scrum-half after 20-odd minutes was added to late on by a duplicate of Accies first try. A kick over the defence saw the full back bundled into touch five metres out and from there the forwards weren’t leaving without the try. With the conversion going over, the home side were within ten points of the visitors. They couldn’t close the gap, though, so the match ended, under slightly lighter rain, 30-20 to Edinburgh Accies.

 

So another soggy match under lights ended with the expected, but not guaranteed, result for Accies. With three of their four tries being scored when Watsonians were down a, fairly influential, player, it might not have been such an ‘easy’ first half if Watsonians had ‘…kept their head when all about them, etc…’. And as Accies appeared to run out of a bit of steam as the second half progressed, maybe ‘Sonians could have taken the match. Maybe…

Report and photos – John Preece
Web – http://www.photoboxgallery.com/jlp-photography

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Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.