Heriot’s ease past Knights but the hosts salvage hope

Heriot’s will go into the second leg of back-to-back Super6 matches knowing that the running game which gave them victory over Southern Knights on Saturday is in good order.

Once they had settled into the match, Phil Smith’s men played with greater poise than their hosts and, in the second half, achieved the style of rugby for which their head coach is striving. “I felt we were the team trying to play with width in the game and on another day we would have scored a number of tries,” he said.

After trailing 7-0 at the interval to a breakaway try by Joe Jenkins, the result of a dropped pass by the visitors and a hack upfield by Knights’ centre Patrick Anderson, Heriot’s dominated the second half, scoring a penalty try after forward pressure, and then tries by replacement wing Jack Blain and hooker Mike Liness, the latter’s from a move sparked by back rower Charlie Jupp.

Southern Knights know that there is a bit of ‘fixing’ to be done this week if they are to break their duck in the FOSROC Super6 series this coming weekend.

But coach Rob Chrystie believes his team performed much better than in their previous match at the Greenyards, when they lost heavily to Ayrshire Bulls. He said: “We’re learning. We’re finding our feet slowly. Up front we’re not far away. We’ve got quite a few missing but we’re not using that as an excuse.”

Theabsenceofseveraltop line players through injury, among them stand-off and skipper Craig Jackson, has required the Knights’ less experienced players to step up. In that context Chrystie would have been pleased with the performances of benchmen, Finlay Scott at hooker and teenager Jacob Henry on the wing, both contributing to a late fightback by the Knights that ended with Edinburgh’s Jason Baggott scoring under the posts to give the Greenyards men a bonus point and perhaps the hope that better times are just around the corner.