Peebles 41

Preston Lodge 40

Allan Beveridge at The Gytes

WHAT an advert for summer rugby.

And to cap a memorable day Peebles are through to the next round of the Cup - albeit by the skin of their teeth.

The good afternoon for Peebles did not start all that well.

Before the half hour mark the Gytes men were trailing by 14 points with the East Lothian visitors scoring two converted tries from No8 Alan Whittingham and inside centre Blair Robertson.

Robbie Griffin added the conversions.

The Gytes men hit back with tries in the 31st and 34th minute.

Cameron Pye took a crash ball from captain Donald Anderson on the visitors 22 and he burst the defence to score between the posts.

Right from the restart Scott Stoddart finished of a move which took Peebles from their own line involving Donald Anderson, Greg Raeburn and Martin Cruikshank who passed the ball to Stoddart, still in his own half, and he out paced the defence to score in the left hand corner.

Raeburn's two conversions brought the scores level.

Having got back on level terms Peebles found themselves trailing again by half time.

Lodge ran in another two tries, much to the consternation of the clock watching Peebles supporters.

During that same extended period the referee penalised Scott Stoddart with the line at his mercy for being offside after a grubber kick from Donald Anderson.

To be fair Preston Lodge were worth their 26-14 lead at the interval.

Immediately at the start of the second half Peebles reduced the margin with a try by Martin Cruickshank - converted again by Greg Raeburn. However this came at a cost when the Peebles full back had to leave the field after taking a knee to the kidneys.

He spent the night in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and must be a doubt for tomorrow’s (Saturday) game against Biggar.

Preston responded by pushing into the Peebles 22 and were awarded a scrum five when they were held up over the line.

From that resulting scrum No8 Whittingham scored his second try of the game.

Griffin converted to make it 21-33.

Peebles were far from finished and from a scrum on half way, Raeburn did a ‘run around’ to quickly pass to Ruaridh Clinch.

Clinch was tackled in the visitors 22, but the ball was recycled quickly and the forwards drove over.

Ten minutes later Peebles thought they had scored again.

This time James May on the left wing rounded his opposite number only to be ‘tap tackled’ five metres from the line.

A Raeburn penalty brought Peebles within two points of the visitors.

And, for the first time in the match, the home team took the lead with 15 minutes to go.

Willy Brown fielded the restart to feed Richard Harrison who made ground before handing onto Donald Anderson.

His grubber kick which was picked up by James May. Although he was stopped on the line Peebles recycled for Keiran Brown to drive over.

Raeburn's conversion gave the Pees a 38-33 advantage.

With four minutes to go Preston scored under the posts through Pete Johnstone.

Griffin made it 38-40 with the easy conversion.

With time ticking down Peebles were awarded a penalty some 35 metres out.

Thankfully Raeburn had the accuracy and the range to get them through to the second round of the Cup.

Tomorrow sees the start of the league season and it could not come much harder with a home game against neighbours Biggar.

Peebles will have to play a bit better than they did but there were glimpses of what they can do with the ball in hand and with the help of a crowd Peebles hope to get one over on their rivals in an important game at The Gytes.