Battling Linlithgow fall to away defeat
Reds can’t make it three wins in a row with Royal High loss
Linlithgow Reds were unable to make it three wins on the bounce as they suffered a 23-6 loss away to Royal High.
The Reds started brightly and exerted some pressure on the home defence but uncharacteristic passing mistakes prevented them from turning that into anything more than a single Ross Martin penalty.
Midway through the first half, the hosts opened their account when a penalty kick hit the posts with the Reds failing to tidy up the rebound.
From a scrum to the left of the posts, Royal High recovered with the subsequent passing move ending with the game’s first try.
Both sides exerted plenty of attacking pressure but were unable to add anything more than a penalty apiece - which was particularly frustrating for Linlithgow given their hosts were a man down following a yellow card for a high tackle.
The Reds turned down some very kickable penalties in the final minutes of the half in an unsuccessful attempt to get over the line, ending up trailing 10-6 at the interval.
The second half began with no team dominating the game but with much of the rugby unstructured and neither team creating any scoring opportunities.
As the game wore on, Royal High stuck to their simple game plan of using their strong pack and direct running centres to good effect.
After adding a penalty to extend their lead, the home team grabbed their second try which resulted from a speculative kick from their own half ending up just short of the Reds line before the ball was moved right with the score being converted for a 20-6 lead.
The Linlithgow coaches emptied the subs bench by bring on Mark Caddle, Fraser Mochrie, Liam Park and Stevie Grant but despite some valiant late runs, in particular from Martin and Stewart, a try continued to elude the Reds with Royal High adding a penalty to complete the scoring.
Both packs put in a huge amount of tackles but Royal High just had the edge in making ground with the ball in hand. The back three of Linlithgow had few opportunities in open play and were unable to continue their fine recent try scoring form.
They’ll be looking to get back to winning ways in two weeks time when they travel to Broughton following a free week.
Meanwhile, Livingston are still searching for their first victory of the season after they fell to an emphatic 73-8 loss away to Trinity Academicals. They’ll be aiming to bounce back in a fortnight’s time when they travel to Hawick Linden.