Edinburgh Rugby Llanelli Scarlets were the visitors to BT Murrayfield on Friday night in round 4 of the Guinness PRO12. Things could only get better after the massacre the previous weekend by the current League leaders, Ospreys. However it only took 50 seconds for the Scarlets to take the lead following a TMO adjudicated try by Harry Robinson. Edinburgh fought back into the Scarlets 22 and regaining possession, they were awarded a penalty at a breakdown, which gave Heathcote the opportunity to pull three points back. But the curse of every coach in the country came calling as Edinburgh gave away a quick penalty which allowed the visitors to restore their seven point lead at 10-3. After a long period of fairly dreary play, Scarlets were up near the home 22 and a ruck penalty award was quickly taken by scrum half, Aled Davies, who took full advantage of his 10-yard free run to break through the defence and offload a pass to No.15 Liam Williams who dived over for Scarlets’ second try. 17-3 to Scarlets. From the kick-off, the home side drove the Scarlets back and a series of barging runs down the right at the defence, in quick succession created a huge overlap on the other side and Heathcote sent the ball out to Tim Visser who had a clear run in for the try. Heathcote then scored the conversion to take the score to 17-10 at which the half ended. Early in the second half, Priestland kicked another penalty from, yet, another breakdown infringement which saw Edinburgh’s John Andress binned and the score opened out to 20-10.Both sides had periods of possession and attacking, but it wasn’t until the 71st minute that Edinburgh took advantage of a carded John Barclay to send Phil Burleigh over for a second try. Heathcote drew the sides level with the kick and just failed to take the win with a missed penalty in overtime. (Full report by Stephen Brunsdon in the Sport section)
Club Rugby Week 5 of the BT Premiership saw three of the four Edinburgh teams on the losing side. To be fair, one of the matches was between Heriots and Boroughmuir which saw the Goldenacre side take the win 34-12. Elsewhere, Edinburgh Accies were beaten 23-17 at Ayr and Currie went down 41-26 at Melrose. In the table, Heriots move up to share second place with Ayr on 19 points, while Currie drop to fifth, still on 13. Boroughmuir and Accies retain their sixth and tenth places’ Muir still on 11 points, but Accies gained a bonus point and are now on 2. In the BT National League Div. 1 week 4 had both Stewarts-Melville and Watsonians playing in the Borders. The coincidence ended there, however, as Stew-Mel came away from Jed Forest with a 17-12 win but ‘Sonians were beaten 27-16 by Selkirk. Both sides retain their respective league positions with Stew-Mel still in third, but with 13 points and Watsonians still in sixth with 10.
