North Berwick enjoy a deserved win

By Iain A Dove

An independent report by an unbiased supporter!

On a beautiful winters morning North Berwick played host to Trinity Academy at Recreation Park. With the sun beaming down on the supporters and Alasdair Gardner hosting a sponsored lunch there was a good crowd shouting on the home team. Luckily for everyone Physio Stewart continued his unique brand of fashion on the touchline, and will be a serious contender for "physio legs of the year". On boggy ground the first half was a close battle with not much open rugby. Grant Craig playing stand off and brought in for his huge defensive hits was controlling the game with his right boot and frightening the opposition with his day old moustache growth. Narrowly avoiding being sin binned for almost tackling someone by accident, he managed to convert an offside penalty with an excellent kick and put NB 3 points to the good. With Grant Black deciding to have a little nap on the ball, NB found themselves with 14 players and following some pressure by the Trinity pack they were able to convert a penalty which made the score 3-3 at half time.
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> > The second half found North Berwick playing both downwind and downhill which allowed more opportunity to play open rugby. Dougie Orr and Cal Cockburn were benched for the first half due to contract negotiations (failure to pay their subs!) and both made a huge impact when they were brought on. Following good work by the NB pack, particularly man of the match Jake Boswell, Dougie found himself two yards from the line with the ball in hand and that was just close enough for him to fall over and score the try which was converted by Grant C. Score NB 10 Trinity 3. North Berwick continued to have most of the play in the second half with some great breaks by Koyl Hamilton and Grant Spence. It was Spence who created the second try with an deft chip which was collected by Graeme Fairgreive (sass) which made it North Berwick 15 Trinity 3. Following yellow cards for both Connor Johnston and Jake Boswell for being offside and bumping into the scrum-half, Cal Cockburn decided it was time to up the stakes. In the post match interview he called it "pushing the guy to the ground", to the many spectators lining the touchline it looked a little different. Harry Hill, who was playing prop for Trinity got a little bit upset with Cals antics and decided to throw 30 punches and connect with none. It was an impressive sight, so impressive that Jake, busy working on his theory of relativity in the sinbin was happy to throw a few haymakers into the mix. The end result was a red card for Cal and a red card for Harry Hill. Finishing the game with 12 men North Berwick absorbed good work by Trinity and found themselves the deserving winners on the day 15 - 3. The end.
Report by Tank