On there second road trip to the borders in as many weeks, the 2XV were looking to take some valuable points from this game into the league. From the offset Forrester set out to upset Peebles as much as they could at ruck time. Within the first 3 minuets Callum Aitken had successfully turned over the ball 3 times. Getting himself into a dominant ‘hunter’ position and falling back with the ball each time when hit at the ruck. After this turn over Forrester tried to get in behind Peebles by kicking through, a good kick chase caused Peebles to make a mistake and end up giving away a very slack penalty. Unfortunately a shot a goal was missed by Fraser Newbury. The front row boys were enjoying the physical battle in the scrum and in open play, this was shown again when Nick Drew & Callum Aitken managed to get into a solid Edinburgh ball body position and gain the team a scrum for there efforts. Time and time again in the first half Peebles seemed to run out of options during attack as Forrester defence just kept coming up hard and meeting them with some big tackles. Unfortunetely the boys found themselves 2 scores down in the first half through a group of poor tackles in our red zone. Not enough communication within the defensive line was at fault for these 2 scores, and some poor inside shoulder defence. Not to be defeated through the guys got themselves back into the game and found them with a scrum on the Peebles 5m line, 1 late was the call and the big Peebles 22 bought the fake dummy and Fraser Newbury went over untouched, also converting his own try. It was very encouraging to see every time Peebles kicked the ball, Lucas Buxton would always return it to them linking up well with his wingers Neil Robertson & Graeme Dudgeon, this got the team on great go forward ball for the likes of Mark Wyper to carry hard and set up the ball for the next phase. Mark Wyper was putting constant pressure on the Peebles lineout and forced a couple off turnovers with his hard work. But leading the way for the forwards had to be Callum Aitken’s work at the breakdowns. It was also very encouraging to see most of Peebles backline 30 mins into the game blowing. Intelligent play at the breakdowns again was gaining Forrester some valuable yards with John McMillian using Mark Wyper on a red out instead of picking and going himself. This put Peebles on the back foot every time it was carried out. Peebles found themselves just in front at half time but were under loads of pressure from the men in Green & Black.

Into the second half Forrester where looking to put more pressure on Peebles and look for more points in this match. Again just like the first half Peebles were running out of options sometimes in attacked and forced to kick down the throat of Lucas Buxton, again as before Lucas ran it right back at them and enjoyed always having a go at the Peebles chasers. After a short spell of good pick and go’s from Peebles Carl Trahms found himself in a hunter position and gained his side a good penalty and took the pressure right off the team. Fraser Newbury stuck this deep into the Peebles has with that man who loved a run in this game Lucas Buxton chasing it. The ball stayed in play and Peebles were caught sleeping when Lucas ran past all them and kicked it into the try area for a great individual score. This shows all the reason why we should always chase our own kicks! Again Forrester started to build up some more pressure with there tails up a little bit after that score and went on there was trying to attack the Peebles line. After 10mins of pressure all there was to show was 3 points to Peebles after a kick through caught our guys offsite. With only 5 minutes to go in the match the guys found themselves in the lead 21-18. Again pilling the pressure onto Peebles the guys had good position on the ball and worked there way into the 22. The Peebles 22 gave away a penalty for a high tackle, we kicked to touch, but unfortunetely the lineout was lost and Peebles cleared, it was a poor clearance and yet again Lucas Buxton set on his way to attack and try and get another score to end the game for Peebles. Lucas linked up well with Dudge who went in field and managed to off load to Mark Wyper putting him into a 2v1 against the winger. Wyper decided to carry the ball into contact 5m out and force an offload to John McMillian but the ref judged this to be forward and called for a 5m scrum to Peebles. From this mistake Peebles managed to clear out to the 22 again, were Lucas ran it back and yet again the Peebles committed a high tackle and Forrester were awarded a penalty on the Peebles 5m. (3 points up and around 4mins on the clock some may think it could have been option to kick for goal and get a 6 point cushion and force Peebles to have to try and score a try and kick the conversion.) But it was decided to go for the scrum as it was performing well and attempt to get a push over try/platform for a backs move to score. But this was not the case, a rush of blood from the front row and they were adjudged to have gone early in the scrum and were given a free-kick against then. Peebles to this noticed a few gaps in the backline and went on the attack. There 13 set the ball up for there 12 to go on what was some run and a gain of 85m to only do a silly offload when he would have probably been in himself. The ref judged the player to have knocked it on in the try area and awarded Forrester a 5m try. It was a poor attempt at a tackle from a Forrester front row that unfortunately got us into that position. The ref called last play and all the boys needed to do was get the ball out the pitch and they had recorded a great victory over 2nd in the league Peebles. So to the scrum, ball went in and Peebles got a good shunt on, Nick Priestley realised his scrum was under a lot of pressure and picked and went. Got off the base of the scrum really well leaving the Peebles 7 stuck to the scrum and heading toward there 10 all he know needed to do was set it up for someone to punt it off the pitch. But Nick ended up in some space heading towards the 10 and ended up kicking it right down the middle of the pitch. Only for the Peebles speedy 11 to collect the ball and start a diagonal run toward the other winger to finish off a easy 2v1 in the corner. (Some poor tackle attempts to get this 11 down, but at the same time the backline was not expecting this kick!) What can only be described as a rush of blood from Nick after the excellent pick up had actually cost the guys the game. Looking at Nick’s reaction after the score he did not need to be told what he had done.

Hopefully onwards and upwards next week with a double header at home for 1xv & 2xv.
Next game for 2xv is Edinburgh Accies Blues. Nice big local derby with the visitors currently sitting in the top half of the table and winning the first game in the season between the 2 teams.