Guard of honour greets Kirkcaldy for celebration of league title

It was a day of celebration at Beveridge Park on Saturday as Kirkcaldy celebrated their BT National League Division 2 title.

The Fifers brought the curtain down on their season with a clash against West of Scotland on their home pitch.

A guard of honour lined up to see Kirkcaldy on to the pitch led out by Greg Wallace, playing his 250th game for the club.

All in all is was a fitting end to a hugely successful season for Kirkcaldy, who won promotion Division 1 as champions, but there was certainly no hint of “the end of a long season” feel about the clash with West.

The Burnbrae men had failed to fulfil their fixture earlier in the season with Kirkcaldy resulting in Saturday’s re-scheduled match and as a consequence had been handed a points deduction which meant that they were bottom of the table requiring a point to avoid the drop into National 3.

So much rested on the result for West and they came roaring out of the blocks at a fair old lick, Jamie McCauley scoring the first try and Pete Burns converting.

Ross McCauley added a second but Kirkcaldy got their second wind and tries from Dayle Turner and Kurt Littlejohn, both converted by Craig Letham, saw them turn 14-12 ahead.

In the second half Danny Jennings and Rory Brown crossed for Kirkcaldy, Letham converted one and Nicky Sutcliffe grabbed a third try for West so at 26-19 the losing bonus was within their grasp as was the possibility of a try bonus.

As the drama unfolded, however, West missed penalties, saw their frantic attempts to breach the Kirkcaldy defence fail and finally, with the second last play of the game, Letham slotted a penalty for Kirkcaldy to stretch the lead to 10 points.

The game re-started only for the final whistle to blow and with that West were consigned to National 3 rugby next season.

The BT National 3 relegation battle came down to the final game between Haddington and Dalziel. With Haddington taking the spoils with a 20-8 win, Perthshire could only contemplate the result of a miserable season as Haddington leapfrogged them to safety and the North Inch club joined Dalziel in dropping down to the regional leagues.