Jed come from behind to win at Inverleith
Having shipped 98 points against in their opening two matches of the 2016-17 season in the BT National League, Div. 1, Stewarts-Melville were looking for success at home to kick-start the season. Things looked promising for a while, but they eventually lost the match, and the losing bonus point, to the more experienced side.
It started badly for the home side as Jed-Forest scored within the first minute of the match with a fine run from centre, Gregor Young, which No. 10, Robbie Yourston, converted for a 7-0 lead.
However, from the restart, Stew-Mel were quickly on the case and barrelled their way into opposition territory, with No. 10, Samuel Ross, playing a significant role in the advance. They were soon knocking on the door of the try line and, following a couple of rucks, lock, Alex Rappsted, forced his way over the line for their opener. Mike Hanning stepped up for the conversion and, job done, it was 7-7.
The typically sparse crowd then only had to wait another 10 minutes or so to see the home side’s second try.
Following a 7th minute penalty miss by Hanning, Stew-Mel returned the restart drop-out with similar intent as they had earlier, this time the try was a long range effort from center, Sean Murchie, who raced in from around half way to go over for the second try in the right hand corner. Hanning failed to convert this time around so the score stood at 12-7.
Five minutes later, the home side scored again. This followed a similar pattern to Murchie’s try, but came down the left side with James Ferguson doing the run in from deep. Hanning missed this conversion as well, but the score now stood at 17-7.
Other than a 25th minute penalty for Jed’s Yourston for 17-10, the match settled into a fairly even contest with neither side particularly dominant and both losing and gaining both possession and territory in roughly equal measure. When the breakthrough came, it came in favour of Forest when, with just over five minutes to the break, Jed’s full back, Lewis Young, slipped through the defence to touch down near the posts. Yourston then converted the extras to take the score to 17-17.
Immediately following the try, Stew-Mel’s Ross was carded for a deliberate infringement (of some sort) and that incident allowed Yourston another shot at goal, which he accepted and scored to make it 20-17 going into the break.
The early second half was memorable for the lack of anything memorable going on and, other than a 12th minute penalty from Yourston for 23-17, neither side looked especially dangerous.
As the half progressed, however, the home side started to regain the upper hand and got close on a couple of occasions, but were turned over at the breakdown or ran out of space to pass into.
With the match entering the final few minutes, Jed cleared from the rear of a close-in scrum, then managed to regain possession upfield, before breaking through into Stew-Mel’s 22. A couple of quick recycles and accurate passing left No. 8, Blade Roff, with an easy metre or two to score the final points of the match and for the visitors to go home with a 28-17 victory.
This leaves Stew-Mel at the foot of the table with zero from three, only one point adrift of Musselburgh and Howe of Fife, but they are going to have to get their, admittedly, young team firing on all cylinders if they want to avoid the drop come season’s end.
Images from the match will appear here over the next few days.
