After 6 wins in a row the U15s finally succumbed to defeat against the team we new would be our toughest opponents in this half of the season, Heriots.
Although the scoreline shows 6 tries to 1 against the game was not at all one-sided. Heriots had to work very hard for possession and when they got it they took advantage using a couple of powerful and fast runners who were able to race past our defence on each occasion.
This happened straight from the off when the Nails went in for 2 quick scores courtesy of their winger who outpaced us on the flank. Lasswade, looking smart in their new strips, started to get a grip and our forwards started to dominate, particularly in the scrum.

We started getting some good ball out to the backs but unfortunately the final ball was letting us down and we failed to take advantage. Nevertheless after going through several phases of possession the forwards set up a ruck on the 5 metre line and the ball was passed through the backs to Matty Black who despite being tackled on the line, managed to turn and touch the ball down. Harry then put over a tricky conversion to make the score 17-7 at half time.

The boys were told to work harder in the rucks to ensure we won possession and we did see an improvement in the second period. Despite our scrum still being dominant and the line-outs working well we couldn’t turn possession into scores. There were some great tackles put in today by the likes of Matty Duffy, Cammy Watt and Aaron and excellent rucking by Bear and Euan but once against Heriots took advantage when the ball was in the hands of their strong runners and when breaking the first tackle they would be through to score under the posts. After conceding 3 tries in this fashion the final score was 32-7 to Heriots.

We played a further 20 where again the forwards worked a good ball forwards to allow Sam to crash over. However tired bodies and some injuries started to tell and we shipped another 3 scores.

The boys certainly put 100% effort in today which was the minimum we had asked of them. They all got stuck in and I think made Heriots work hard for their points today. Their strong runners and more consistent tackling made the difference. We will go into the new league facing consistently strong teams for the rest of the season so we all know the level we now need to play at.