Highland lost their third successive game in National 3, losing 43-12 in the Borders to St Boswells who by virtue of the win leapfrogged the Inverness side to move into fourth place, pushing the Canal Park side down into sixth place.
Head coach Davie Carson was once again left exasperated by his side’s second-half collapse after turning around at half-time only 14-7 down and well in contention. He said: “When we pulled up back to 14-12 immediately after the break, I thought we would kick on, but instead we made a series of mistakes, and worse starting falling off tackles.
“We were destroyed in the last half hour which is bad after all our hard work in the paddock during the week when I thought we had sorted things out. We will certainly need to improve if we are to have any chance against league leaders Glasgow Accies when the come visiting next Saturday.”
The Highland try-scorers were flanker Seamus Ross and winger William Ross. Centre Scott Fraser kicked one conversion.
In Ardrossan a gutsy Gordonians arrested its recent run of four defeats, earning a 17-17 draw, although head coach Ryan Morrice thought his side had done enough to win.
“We created enough chances to win, but it was an improved performance, even if we wasted some great opportunities late on in the game,” said Morrice.
Accies were 12-7 up at half-time, the Countesswells side’s try coming from its hard working number eight Sam Cooper, converted by centre Graeme Crawford. Cooper struck again the second half while hooker Tom Williams got his name on the scoresheet in the second half for two unconverted tries in the persistent driving rain which did not help the cause of the fluent running game of the visitors.
In Perth Orkney were denied a second win of the season, this despite leading 19-8 at half-time only to run out 22-19 losers as Perthshire rallied.
“We took our foot off the pedal after playing some good rugby in the first half, but this was a good performance on the road, but we’ll build on this and go on to move up the league,” said Paul Livingstone, the Orkney head coach.
