Your weekly update is here! Late, we know, and our apologies, but still, we hope you enjoy your fun-filled-fact-full dose of Northern for the week. We did quite well at the weekend (in tremendously mucky conditions), and nice to see the Bunker a lot fuller than usual this weekend as well.

Also moving forward, apart from a home fixture for the 1st XV and a derby for the 2nd XV, this weekend is the BEST weekend of the year - ignoring our 7’s, Club Dinner, Halloween etc of course!

So for you, follower of Northern, here is the week that was/is to be!

On The Pitch
For both sides, Saturday morning brought a submerged Inverleith Park, with flooding of biblical proportions on our usual pitches. Various pitch assessments took place, and although in hindsight they weren’t the greatest conditions to undertake a game of rugby, both referees approved them as playable and both fixtures proceeded as planned!

For the 1st XV, it was nearby Liberton who were the visitors, arriving on the back of three wins on the trot, and the brutish forward-heavy side from the south of Edinburgh offered (on paper at least) a serious challenge in the potentially error strewn conditions.

However, Northerns pack, in particular their front-row rose to the occasion and proceeded to dominate the visitors in the tight and loose. Two penalty tries - one in the first and then last ten minutes of the game - saw Northern eventually triumph 17-7, with huge credit to man of the match Dougie Candlish, who took on one of the largest specimens of prop I have ever seen, and overwhelmingly triumphed. All other points came from the boot of Andrew Spiller, whose younger incarnation would have probably scored his chance late on in the game. Good work!

For the 2nd XV, a full squad gave them the chance to have a real go at Linlithgow, who we had beaten in the same fixture last year (in almost identical conditions, from memory). Unfortunately for Northern, their visitors were just a tad stronger and although they put up a good fight, they unfortunately went down 32-12.

Some excellent performances were left out there by all accounts, which bodes well for their continuation next season and overall improving our full squad! Better luck next time out and a credit to all who turned up and put in a good performance.

Training/Availabilities/This Week’s Fixtures
Training proceeds this week as planned, and at the critical juncture where we are discussing the purchase of new lights on committee, we need to get the bodies down to try and justify this purchase to the senior members of the club. Although it’ll be light in around three weeks (conveniently the season end), we need to keep things ticking over till then so we can improve before you all get a break!

As always, please send in your availabilities for this week, as we are aiming for earlier kick-offs due to an extra special event in the late afternoon.

For the 1st XV, Saturday sees them presented with the perfect opportunity to right the wrongs of December and take the East 2B title. Our nearest challengers (Lismore) are the visitors and after dominating them for 60 minutes last time out for little gain, it’s imperative we put points past them when the chance is offered. We’d love it if you could join us for the fixture (hopefully for the celebrations afterwards) and kick off will be at 1 PM.

For the 2nd XV they visit Inverleith for their away derby of the season. A narrow but convincing win on the first day of the season at home thanks to a late Stewart Morrison conversion means Saturday should prove a tough fixture, but one that is infinitely winnable. Kick off again is 1 PM.

Saturdays Main Event
So, enough about trivial league rugby, who’s really bothered about that anyway (all of you, presumably, mainly because you’re reading this), it's the Old Firm on Sunday, but firstly...

Saturday see’s Vern Cotters brave, honest, underdogs Scotland venture south of the border to do battle with England, who are (somehow) on a 17 match victorious run and have the opportunity to equal the All Black’s record for top tier consecutive wins against the “Auld Enemy”.* Given Scotland haven’t beaten England away in 34 years (Wilson Craig was less than 6 months old when that happened, for context), won full stop in 8 and that Twickenham is haunted by the ghosts of some great Scottish teams, the chances of an upset are fairly slim.**

However, you wouldn’t want to do a Wilson Craig (yes, another reference) and miss one of your countries biggest sporting events by being absent at the moment of triumph (England could claim a consecutive title if Ireland lose in Wales without two bonus points on the Friday night), so we extend an invite to you, your nearest and then maybe the dearest to join us for the fixture, which kicks off at 4 PM.

To quote Effie Trinkett (ask your kids), "May the odds be ever in your favour."***

Yours in rugby,

Edinburgh Northern

* The longest winning streak in international rugby is Cyprus, on 24 matches - the author didn't even know they played rugby.

** In the words of Kevin Keegan, "I'd love it" if we could. Stranger things have happened, like getting knocked out of a domestic World Cup in the group stages.

*** Unless you're wearing white.