A solid start and some good early exchanges ended with a Leith try after 13 mins. The Leither’s stretching the Cougars defence after a line out saw them spread the ball from one side of the pitch and back again before scoring in the corner. But it wasn’t long before the Cougars responded.

The forwards doing well to turn over a Leith Scrum in their own 22 allowed William Welsh to carry to 5m out where the Leith defence failed to release in the tackle, a quick penalty from Paul Miller was stopped short of the line before the ball was released wide by Muru-King to Tom Hunter who was also stopped short. However it was Captain Strachan to the ball first who twisted his way in behind the defence from close range to score his first try of the afternoon.

Taylah Muru-King, in the unfamiliar role of stand-off, would be instrumental in the second Cougars try. A line out and drive from the Cougars was stolen by Leith who cleared their lines. Danny Buchanan, in at fullback, recovered the kick and immediately set the ball wide through Wright and Hunter. The next phase Muru-King opted to ding a beauty of a kick back to the corner where the lineout had just been. Justin Lipinski had a lot of ground to cover but edged in ahead of the Leith fullback and dived onto the ball to finish.

With the forwards taking command of the set piece Corstorphine took control of the game in patches. Leith however got a couple of late penalties at the end of the first half though opted to kick at goal given the dominance at the lineout from the Cougars pack. Only 1 of 2 chances converted meant the Cougars ended the first half 12-8 up with Leith refusing to be written off.

The second half continued in the same vain as the first with some good spells of rugby. On 50 mins Euan Page crashed over to take the Cougars to 19-8, then Leith scored minutes later to keep the scores close at 19-15. Paul Strachan then crashed over for his second of the day from short distance with Muru-King converting the points to take it to 26-15.

With time running out the Cougars struggled to get out the half and pressure told from a resilient Leith side as they scored a converted try in the 74th min. The Pressure came again from Leith, though with the clock ticking, it looked like their chance had gone. The Cougars carrying the ball to just inside their half before a quick turnover from the Leith hooker allowed them to spread it wide and score in the far corner to make it 26-27. The conversion was missed and the fulltime whistle blown.

An agonising finish for the home players and support, but some huge positives to take away from the Corstorphine performance. Leith have made winning a habit for a while now and did really well to take the points. All credit to them for persevering!

Next week is Trinity away, another difficult side in this very competitive league.