Preston Lodge 81 - Hawick Linden

Preston Lodge got the new league campaign off to a flying start by running in 13 tries against a beleaguered Hawick Linden at the Pennypit on Saturday, to record an emphatic win that puts them at the top of the table after week 1.

Playing in the newly formed East Regional Division 1 which is the first stage of league reconstruction by the Scottish Rugby Union, PL got off to a flying start when Andrew Clark scored the first of the tries after only two minutes. This signalled the start of an onslaught for the visitors from the Borders that they would find impossible to stop as they were totally outclassed in every area on the pitch. Clark converted his own try but he would have no further success with the boot during the rest of the afternoon.
The PL pack were generally in control at the scrums and good quality ball was always on tap for scrum half Greg Leitch and it was the speed at which the ball was kept moving that caused most of the problems for Linden.
Another three tries by Greg Kinross, Chris Dixon and Ryan Gray followed in quick succession to ensure that PL’s try scoring bonus point was secured after just 17 minutes and in the 27th minute, Thomas Logan scored the fifth after handing off a would be tackler as he battled for the line.
Just prior to half time, the forwards got in on the act when prop Keith Duncan emerged with the ball after touching down at the bottom of a maul but when Greg Kinross scored his second to make the half time score 39-0, it meant that the backs had scored six of the seven tries so far, although Linden were offering little in defence to stop the flow.

The second half started in fine style with one of the best tries of the afternoon when Paul Voy stole the ball from a lineout on halfway and then broke away to run in from 40 metres with the defence trailing in his wake. Kinross had by now assumed the kicking duties and he was much more successful with seven successful attempts in total.
The rest of the match was exactly the same as before with PL continuing to play entertaining rugby with clever passing moves among all the players. Further tries were scored by Dougie Naismith, Paul Voy, Darren Eales (2) and Thomas Logan to make the final score 81-0.

This was a good display of tight defence and entertaining, running rugby from PL although they will expect to come up against some tougher opposition as the season progresses. Perhaps one of the biggest tests will be next week when they travel the shortest distance to an away game when they go to Tranent to play local rivals Ross High. Kick off 3pm.

Preston Lodge Team:
G Kinross, D Thomson, R Gray, C Dixon, T Logan, A Clark, G Leitch
K Duncan, D Wardell, S McLean, B Cowan, P Voy, A Archer, D Eales, C Quigley

Replacements (All Used):
C Guiney, D Naismith, R Mackie