In Saturday’s clash at Inverleith, either Stewarts Melville were going to keep up their challenge for a top two spot in BT National League Division 1 or Dundee High Rugby were going to pull themselves into play-off contention.
Sadly for the Mayfield men, the capital side edged the contest 22-20 and, although they collected a losing bonus, Dundee slip into mid-table in sixth spot, 20 points adrift of leaders Selkirk and 13 short of GHA in the play-off spot.
It looked as though it could have gone the other way at half-time with Dundee ahead 10-9 thanks to a Jonny Petty try and a conversion and penalty by Harry Miller to three Nick McCashin penalties.
The visitors doubled their score after the break with another Miller penalty and the conversion of his own try but the McCashin boot was merciless as he added another two penalties and converted prop Rhys Morgan’s try.
In the Caledonia derby next week, Dundee face an Aberdeen Grammar Rugby side at Mayfield who will come off a 64-3 romp against the league’s whipping boys, Hillhead Jordanhill, but Dundee must aim to pick up maximum points otherwise the season will start to slip away from them.
In BT National 2, Howe of Fife regained top spot as fixtures favoured them with a visit from toiling Livingston while Falkirk had a tricky visit to Leigh Bent where they lost to a Hamilton side now with sights seriously set on the league title.
Again the disparity between top and bottom of the table was illustrated by the 111-0 scoreline in Howe’s favour and coach Gary Horne agreed: ‘It improves our points differential but apart from that, this does no one any real good.”
The points for Howe were shared among eight scorers with hat-tricks for Ian Wilson, Bob Douglas and Marcus Black with a couple each for Conor Dow, Fraser Clark and Dom Martin with Kevin Currie nabbing a try on his debut.
Martin landed 13 out of 17 kicks and although Howe travel to Beveridge Park next Saturday and Falkirk host Aberdeenshire, they will both be holding their breath for the re-scheduled match between Hamilton and Cartha QP on November 22 which could see the Leigh Bent side go top.
In another runaway win, this time at Woodside, Aberdeenshire piled in the points to thump Ardrossan Accies 76-24.
The game itself was forgettable, such was Shire’s superiority, but, for the second time in three games, South African Wiaan Griebenow ran in five tries.
Kirkcaldy slipped to eighth after going down 23-11 at Stoneyhill to Musselburgh.
Liam Neilson nicked a try and a penalty for Kirkcaldy, Jamie Moffat also landed a penalty but, although Musselburgh added only two second half penalties from Craig Owensen to their 17 points from the first half, it was enough to take the win.
Dunfermline came a cropper at Mansfield Haugh where Hawick YM came out on top 59-11 while Perthshire slugged out a draw at North Inch against Irvine as the Ayrshiremen came back from a 16-8 half-time deficit.
James Wade and Alex Hatzis had the tries for Perthshire with Duncan Clow adding the rest with two conversions and three penalties while Irvine won the try count with scores from the Langs, Andrew and Kevin, and Mike Kirk. Blair Jardine slotted a penalty and a conversion and the final penalty from Ian Ormsby saw the points shared.