Last Saturday saw the men's 1st XV travel all the way to the muckle toon to take on 150 year old Langholm RFC. despite the day starting oddly with Head Coach, John MacDonald, having to isolate and no recognised coaches being able to make the journey there was still positivity that a result could be within our grasp. The two and a bit hour journey took even longer as we enjoyed the rare sight (and 30 min wait) while Cavendish and co zipped past as a delayed Tour of Britain race made its way through Stow. It was teeing up to be one of those days...

A quick start to the game and it was the Cougars who struck first and hard taking an early lead through debutant William Welsh after some good phase play again allowed Welshy to crash over the line from close range with little argument from the Langholm defence.

The Cougars continued to dominate the opening proceedings until Adam Pilkington made a 30m break for the line before being cruelly taken out by a snipper hiding in the foliage of the rolling hills that surround the ground. A fairly serious hamstring tear means a loss in the midfield for a few weeks. The early pressure continued and forced a penalty to make it 0 - 10 from the boot of Muru-King.

Langholm slowly but surely clawed their way back into the game and started competing well. Pressure on the Cougars line gave in on the 27th min as the Langholm scored their first try of the day to make it 7-10. A penalty immediately after the restart allowed Muru- King to add another 3 and keep Corstorphine's noses in front at 7-13.

Around the 30 minute mark is where the Cougars lost their cool and received two yellow cards within the space of 5 minutes. The Cougars did well to maintain possession and limit the Langholm chances and when a penalty opportunity came in the 43 min Muru-King was again on point with the boot. Corstorphine survived almost all of this period with depleted numbers until Langholm found a score out wide. 12-16 the score.

Back to full numbers and a potential win on the cards it was time for the boys to dig in. It was not be though as Langholm did well to spread the ball wide on the big pitch and test the fitness of a tiring cougars. A score under the posts by the Langholm winger allowed them to kick the conversion and take the lead for the first time in the day, 19-16.

With the game in the balance the game swung from end to end before Muru-King slotted yet another penalty to tie things up at 19-19.

Moments later Langholm managed to find another opportunity to score to make it 24-19 with 10 mins to go. Despite some good pressure Corstorphine could not get the ball over the line before the whistle went for full time.

Despite everything the boys had stuck in and had come close to picking up a valuable win on the road, only to come away with a losing point. A big win for a big home crowd on their 150th Anniversary, well done to Langholm for digging out that result.

We look ahead this weekend to North Berwick at home for another testing game.