Watsonians stun Bulls to surge to top of the table
WATSONIANS are back at the top of the Super6 table after beating the Ayrshire Bulls 34-23 thanks largely to a commanding third quarter. Fergus Pringle’s team trailed 13-3 at the break but scored 24 points in the opening 20 minutes of the second half to stun the defending champions. They clinched the bonus-point try with quarter of an hour to go then held off a late Bulls rally.
“We stayed in the fight in the first half, didn’t go away,” head coach Pringle said after the home win, which saw Bobby Bratton, Harrison Courtney, Jason Baggott and Neil Irvine-Hess all touch down. “We stuck in there, and then when we did get a chance in the second half to get a bit of momentum, we capitalised on it.”
The Bulls would have claimed a bonus point for a narrow loss if they had been allowed to play on and score what was a certain try minutes from time, but play was called back for a penalty to them. That seemed a harsh decision, but Ayrshire coach Pat MacArthur insisted his side had to learn from their own mistakes rather than blaming other people when things went wrong.
“I thought the boys deserved something out of the game,” he said. “But they have to learn that the way that it works is if you’re a little bit off, they can punish you.”
With Boroughmuir Bears having beaten the Southern Knights 24-15 on Friday night, Heriot’s then made it a clean sweep for the Edinburgh teams by beating Stirling Wolves 3817 in yesterday’s late game. The Edinburgh side took an early lead through Lewis Govenlock and led 24-5 at the break. Jack Mann scored their bonus-point try on the hour and Rory Steele finished things off on full-time.