Jed-Forest 12
Edinburgh Accies 48
PREMIER B
FIONA SCOTT reports from Riverside Park
BOTH teams knew there would be questions to answer in this rescheduled fixture.
And it was the Edinburgh outfit that had all the right answers as they blew their hosts away with some impressive attacking rugby in the opening 20 minutes.
The defeat means Jed now face an uphill task if they are to go up to the Premiership next season, but coach Darren Cunningham reckons it may have provided the kick up the backside his team needed.
He told us: “Things like that happen and it lets you see just how hard you and your team are mentally. They maybe needed that to show them that it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.
“We have to hold our hands up and admit that we were beaten by a better team, but there were a lot of positives for us to take out of the game and now we have to work with that and move forward.”
Accies kicked off and went immediately on the attack when confusion between Darrren Gillespie and John Szkudro led to the visitors taking possession and a move out to the right saw former Hawick full-back Gavin Douglas sear in for the opening try after just 54 seconds. Ruairidh Bonner slotted the conversion.
Stung into action, Jed responded well and soon regained some semblance of control to spend a lengthy period in Accies territory.
Disorganisation in defence, however, proved their downfall once again and Accies took advantage with flanker Andrew Findlater taking the ball on 20m out and finishing off a fine sprint to the line with a try.
Four minutes later Iain Berthinussen grabbed try number three for the visitors, Bonner converting, following a steal in the Jed 22.
Jed found themselves with the numerical advantage after 29 minutes, Accies second row man Tom Stuart receiving a rather harsh yellow card from Gala whistler Malcolm Changleng, and managed to make the figures count. After getting themselves into a good attacking position through their forwards, they shipped out and Michael Weekley rumbled over the line, ball in hand.
Stuart came back on and was immediately replaced in the bin by teammate Michael Liness, who was handed 10 minutes for killing the ball when Jed were in a scoring position. Half-time score: Jed-Forest 5 Edinburgh Accies 19.
Accies tightened up their defence after the restart and managed to play out the remainder of Liness’ time out without further damage and with all things equal again wasted no time in boosting their score, Bonner slotting a penalty following an offside decision. Five minutes later, skipper Dan Teague was trundled over the line by his pack for the bonus-point try.
Confidence now well and truly bolstered, Accies were scoring at will with Andrew Findlater and Gavin Douglas adding two more quickfire efforts, both of which were converted by Bonner.
To give Jed their credit they never gave up and Greg Nagle was awarded a try from a pushover on the 59th minute after Changleng had consulted his touch judge.
Normal service resumed, however, and the match ended with Chris Dickie flying in at the corner and Bonner converting to end the rout.
Jed-Forest: I. Chisolm; L. Young, R. Hogg, A. Nagle, D. Gobby; E. Scott, R. Goodfellow; A. Ions, David Grieve, A. Croiuro, J. Szkudro, N. Cook, M. Weekley, Donald Grieve, D. Gillespie. Subs: G. Nagle, P. Hill, G. Taylor, J. Hogg.