For 40 minutes on Saturday, it looked as though Dundee High Rugby were going to ruin Stewarts Melville’s hopes of going second in BT National League Division 1 as they turned round 13-7 ahead at half-time at Mayfield.
The capital side upped a gear into the second spell and, with Dundee unable to add to their first-half score, Stew/Mel ran out 29-13 winners.
Prop Stevie Longwell grabbed Dundee’s first-half try and Harry Miller converted then added a couple of penalties, with only full-back Michael Hanning’s try and Nick McCashin’s conversion on the board for the visitors
Into the second half though, Stew/Mel showed why they are trailing only all- conquering Selkirk in the league with a second Hanning try and one each for prop Rhys Morgan and McCashin.
McCashin converted them both, slotted a couple of penalties and ended up with a haul of 14 points to clinch a comfortable win.
When Howe of Fife met Livingston at Duffus Park on BT National 2 business earlier in the season, they ran in 110 points and again, when the two faced each other at Almond Park, the Cupar men ran in a century of points with a 101-0 slaughter of a sadly outclassed home side.
Hefin O’Hare had four tries, Angus Guthrie three, Stewart Martin, James Lawrie and Alisdair Wilson two each and Callum Harris, Stewart Lathangie, Dom Martin had one apiece.
Dom Martin kicked 13 conversions and, if nothing else, the huge score did no harm at all to Howe’s points differential.
It did them even less harm that Falkirk turned over Hamilton by 43-27 and Howe now lie third, three points behind Hamilton with two games in hand and 13 points behind leaders Musselburgh with four games in hand over the Stoneyhill outfit.
At Memorial Field Ardrossan, Aberdeenshire weren’t quite out of sight at half-time with a 24-10 lead but they piled on the points in the second half to come away from Ayrshire with a 43-17 win.
Mike Fraser, Peter McCall, Cameron and Scott Simpson, Wiaan Griebenau, Mike MacLugash and Matt Emmison shared the seven tries with Adam Blake converting four to consolidate Shire in fifth spot and, with six games to play, they could go a few places higher yet come the end of the season.
It was a tight first half at Beveridge Park where league leaders Musselburgh turned only 10-6 up on Kirkcaldy, Jamie Moffat having landed two penalties for the home side to tries by Ewan O’Brian and Rory Watt.
Dayle Turner crossed for a second half try for Kirkcaldy with Quintan Sanft converting but Musselburgh clinched the try bonus with scores from Will Fleming, James Doig and Andrew Binicos, Danny Owenson uncharacteristically landing only one conversion.
Tries from Matt Lloyd and Graham Hall and a couple of penalties from Zac Zropf saw Dunfermline fall agonisingly short of getting a result against Hawick YM in BT National Division 3 and the17-16 defeat at McKane Park makes for an extremely gloomy outlook as the league conclusion nears.
Perthshire travelled back from Ayrshire with the points in the bag having beaten Irvine 25-19 at Marress thanks to tries from messrs McKay, Vey and Henderson, with Duncan Clow ensuring the win with two conversions and two penalties.