RUGBY CLUB ENDS N SEASON ON LOW NOTE
Bumper crowd watch fine first-half display
A large crowd turned out to watch Livingston RFC’s last home game of the season as bottom played top with Dumfries knowing a win would secure them promotion.
It was Livingston who made all the early running, and when the forwards set up the rolling maul they drove well into the Dumfries area, with Connor Clarke gaining possession and driving towards the visitors’ line.
He was held up but managed to offload the ball to Jamie King, who ran in behind the posts to score the try which Dean Edwards converted.
Dumfries started to put some plays together and won a penalty in the Livingston area.
They elected to scrum as this is the strongest part of their game. With most of the Livingston players tied up in the scrum, Dumfries’ left winger Henderson collected the ball with the line at his mercy, but King got across to tackle him into touch.
However, Livi managed to lose the ball from the resulting line-out, conceding a scrum from a knock on and this time Dumfries got over the line – though they missed their conversion.
Dumfries then had a player yellow carded and the extra man meant Livi could pile on the pressure. They were rewarded for their effort when, after a scrum on the half-way line, a kick-through by Ben Shearer was collected by Dean Edwards on he left who managed to jink past his opposite number and then round the full-back to score near the post. The conversion meant Livi went in 14-5 up at the break.
Dumfries made a raft of changes at half-time and made all the early running after the restart and drove the Livi defence back over their own line to score a push-over try which was converted to make it 14-12.
Dumfries then took the lead for the first time in the match as they scored a breakaway converted try after some poor Livi defending. They then pushed Livi back over their line again to make the score 14-26.
Dumfries began to run away with the game then as the Livi players began to tire.
The West Lothian team did not have the strength and depth of the Dumfries bench and they conceded more tries to make the final score 14-45 and ensure Dumfries’ promotion – however they would have been given a scare by Livingston’s first- half performance.
Livingston will play their rugby next year in East Division 1.