Dundee’s win over Stew/Mel was anything but comfortable

Despite the fact that Dundee High had walloped Stewart’s Melville 62-6 in their previous meeting at Mayfield in BT National 1, the fact that the Inverleith side are lying second bottom of the table made Saturday’s capital encounter no straightforward task for Dundee.

So it proved in the first half as only a point separated the teams with George Porteous’s try and Euan Bowen’s conversion to Alasdair Mackie’s first strike and Harvey Young’s penalty making the margin as tight as it could possibly be.

Although they ran in bonus clinching tries in the second half from Mackie for his second then Ronan Joy and Isoa Matacagi with Fraser McKay converting one, Dundee were never able to put enough between themselves and Stew/Mel to feel comfortable.

The home side kept on their tail until the end with tries from James Ferguson and Fraser Morrison and a Bowen conversion and at 25-19 earned themselves a losing bonus which could be crucial in the final reckoning.

If you were of a mind to have punt on BT National 2, you would surely not lose your stake if you backed Kirkcaldy for the title.

They made their way across the Forth to Pennypit Park and duly dumped Preston Lodge 36-19 to maintain not only their outstanding win record but their impressive haul of try bonus points.

Kirkcaldy were 22-12 ahead at the break and in the end, came away with six tries from Greg Wallace’s double, Kurt Littlejohn, Finlay Smith, Owen Bonner and Scott Barclay with Smith landing three conversions.

Brian Wells was the main threat from PL with four penalties although Robbie Giffen was the man who converted the home side’s only try from Pete Johnstone.

Kirkcaldy now top the league, nine points ahead of Lasswade with six games to go, so even if you did fancy that wager on the Beveridge Park men, the odds would now be a lot more frugal than had they taken your fancy last August.

At Park Farm, Howe of Fife ran into a Dumfries side determined to keep up their promotion challenge and in doing so ran in six tries to Howe’s two.

Eden Cruikshank and Andrew Steven had scores for Howe but with Jack Johnston crossing twice for Dumfries followed by Zeke Dyson, Tom Martin, Ali Jackson and John Carlisle and four conversions and a couple of penalties from Mike Scott, the visitors were never really in the hunt.

That 44-10 reverse will do little to alarm the Duffus Park men, however, as they now sit comfortably above the relegation zone with just about enough points in the bag to keep them safe.

There has been a bit of a renaissance at Hughenden since their drop to BT National 3 and indication of that came at North Inch where Perthshire found themselves at the wrong end of a 38-11 scoreline.

Results elsewhere favoured Shire, however, and with only Dalziel breaking their duck against Orkney, none of the teams below them picked up a win to leave them still fourth bottom.