Northern make strong start to season in Stirling sunshine

Bannockburn 19 - 42 Edinburgh Northern

In the glorious Stirlingshire weather, Edinburgh Northern looked for a positive start to the new season in their first preseason friendly.

The lads started off very positively keeping the waves of Bannockburn attacks in their own half with the same solid defence as last season. When Northern eventually got hands on the ball and put some nice pieces of play together they were rewarded with 2 tries in quick succession. Things seemed to be going well with players putting things from training into practise.

During some well matched back-and-forth gameplay, Northern recorded a 3rd try through more positive play. However a few costly mistakes gifted 2 tries back to Bannockburn. From there the Northern lads got slightly too ambitious in attack, trying to force that extra pass. The tally of unforced errors grew and Northern found themselves on the wrong side of a few close decisions at the breakdown. With the sun still beating down, the defence started to get loose and a quick counter from Bannockburn lead to a long range breakaway try to keep there score ticking over.

In the final 20 minutes, after the team aired thoughts and rallied themselves at the break, it looked like a different team playing with the attacking flair that created chances earlier in the game. Northern’s preseason fitness proving an advantage, 3 more tries put the scoreline beyond doubt.

On reflection, a very good start to the season, with some things to work on as always. Pleasing individual performances and the team putting training aspects into practise, scoring from most of the chances that were created.

Training continues Tuesday and Thursday 7pm start.