Following last week's loss at home to Trinity, Leith took to the road to make the short trip to Inverleith Park to face Edinburgh Northern. Both sides were keen to secure a win to help offset relatively poor starts to the campaign, and the game began in lively fashion with Leith attacking the clubhouse end of the pitch, and both Chris Seenan, making his first start, and debutant Stefano De Palma having good runs deep into the Northern half before some good hands from the hosts saw them go wide and their winger coast in at the corner for an unconverted score.

Leith came straight back at Northern and Grant Aitken dived over wide out after some good phase play to get us off the mark. We were then disappointed to concede a soft try ourselves, as a kick through from Northern was mishandled by defending players, and a chaser scooped up the ball to stroll in for another unconverted score. Northern then added a couple of penalties to leave a half time score of 16-5. No matter what other people had in their notebooks.

Both sides traded scores in an exhilarating second half, with the Leith tries being scored by Andy McIntosh, who dived over powerfully after a quick tap, and two pieces of opportunism from scrum half Ryan Burgess, who first darted between tacklers near the line, before hacking on his own kick through and recovering to score his second. Doug added another conversion before Kenny Dannfald added two penalties, including one from long range to leave Leith on a final score of 28. At various points during the second half, Leith's total was stated as "33" and "37", but would the 28 we knew to be correct be enough? Sadly not, as Northern finished the game with 33 having scored twice late on, a controversial penalty try awarded for offside before after receiving a penalty for a high tackle, Northern went through the phases near the line and eventually wore down some brave Leith defence for their prop to dive over for what was a consolation the tying the winning score.

After consulting with both coaches, our Championship referee awarded the victory to the deserving (on account of scoring more points than us) Edinburgh Northern.

Full credit to both sets of players who played the game in the right spirit, and pleasingly, also in the right manner, with both teams keen to go wide and play attacking rugby. It was an enjoyable game to play in, even if events at full-time did not do credit to the action on the pitch. Best of luck for the rest of the season to all at Edinburgh Northern, and we look forward to hosting you in January. Calculators at the ready!