Heriot’s victory blows the race wide open
Heriot’s blew the 2021 Super6 season wide open at Goldenacre yesterday afternoon with a thumping 26-8 home win over previously unbeaten Watsonians.
Stand-off Bruce Houston picked up the Man-of-the-match award for a performance which featured 16 points from the boot – including the first drop-goal ever scored in Super6 – plus an assist to Ross Jones’ first-half try.
Their other five points were scored in the second half by outside-centre Robert Kay, following good build-up work by No. 8 Callum Marshall and fellow midfielder Stuart Edwards.
After a sluggish start to the season, Heriot’s head coach Andrew Kelly was delighted to back-up last week’s narrow away win over Stirling County with this impressive result against the league-leaders – but he insisted that his team have still not reached the level he expects of them.
“I think we were just more mature about how we played,” he said. “We had a bit more confidence and, really importantly, we played in the right areas and didn’t give away many penalties.
“Our first 20 minutes was great, controlled rugby and the second 20 minutes of the first half we started going back to what we had done at the start of the season,” he added.
“So, we know where we
have to be to win games.
His frustrated opposite number, Fergus Pringle, couldn’t quite put his finer on what had gone wrong. His team’s points came from an unconverted Marc Morrison penalty in the first half and Stevie Longwell try at the start of the second half, but for the rest of the game they were a distant second.
“It just shows the fine margins – we were off it a bit and they were on it, they were just the better team,” he reflected.
“There’s not much to take from that game. We know we were outplayed in every area. We have to go away and put things right and come back stronger.”
Watsonians are still top of the table at the moment but will fall behind Southern Knights if the Borderers manage to pick up two bonus points or better at home to Boroughmuir Bears this afternoon.
An injury time penalty from Craig Robertson secured a dramatic 30-28 jo,e win for Stirling County over Ayrshire Bulls on Friday night.