Arnold Clark Men's Premiership: Heriot's leave Marr's survival hopes hanging by thread
03/29/2025 02:45 PM
Marr 0
Heriot’s 31
DAVID BARNES @ Fullarton Park
A SETBACK but not a killer blow to Marr’s chances of survival. Their destiny is no longer in their own hands, but they are still breathing in the fight to escape the third and final relegation spot.
In truth, this second of four home games they have on the bounce to end the season, this was the least likely to yield one of the three wins they will need to avoid the drop. There was a real possibility that the importance of next weekend’s play-off semi-final against Watsonians could have caused Heriot’s to not hit the levels we expect of them this week, which would have opened the door for a shock home win here, so credit goes to the Edinburgh side for respecting the integrity of the league by getting the job done in such a professional manner.
Kelso beating Glasgow Hawks 27-24 at Poynder Park means the Borderers have now secured their top flight safety for next season, while Hawks picking up two bonus-points means they are now eight points points clear of the relegation zone with one game left to play (at home against Selkirk next weekend). Marr, meanwhile, have two rearranged games left, against Hawick at home next week and Currie Chieftains at home the week after. They now need to win both those games and hope Selkirk do them a favour at Balgray.
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The conditions were biblically bad at Fullarton and with the strong wind in their faces in the first half, Marr will have been quietly pleased at being just three tries down at half-time, but they couldn’t find a way back into the game after the break, and although the final score-line perhaps doesn’t fairly reflect what the home team put into this game, head coach Kenny Diffenthal accepted that it wasn’t a complete misrepresentation of what had transpired on the park.
“If you had offered us that 19-0 half-time scoreline beforehand, we would probably have taken it into the wind,” he said. “It probably flattered Heriot’s a little bit, but we spoke about what we had to do at half-time and we knew the first 10 minutes of the second period would be key, and so it proved.
“We just seemed to come out and try to do too much. With the wind at our backs, we seemed to think we could just come out and play loose, and it would all just fall into place. But that’s not how it works, especially against really strong sides like Heriot’s. We just need to win these last two games now, and let everything else take care of itself.”
Marr came close to getting off to a flying start when Logan Jarvie managed to block a pass in midfield then picked up and used his strength to bounce opposite number Angus Hunter before sending Jack Broadfoot on a gallop from near halfway to just shy of the try-line. However, Zac Ross managed to get back to make the try-saving tackle, and a knock-on a few phases later allowed Heriot’s to deploy their dominant throughout scrum to relieve the pressure,.
The visitors twice got over the line without getting the ball down – held up after a powerful line-out maul and then a knock-on in the act of scoring – before the pressure finally t0ld in the 20th minute when No 8 Ali Johnston picked up from the base of a scrum-five and Ben Evans did well to collect the pass at ankle level and dive over. Ross Jones hit the post with a wind-assisted Exocet rocket of a touchline conversion.
Try number two also came off the visiting team’s dominant scrum, although it was several tight phases after the Heriot’s eight had pushed Marr off their own ball (not for the first or the last time in this match), that the ball was sent out to Thomas Glendinning, who defied the treacherous underfoot conditions to skip past his tackler and nip over the line, to set up an easy conversion for Jones.
The final score of the first half was finished by Ross after Dan King had shown plenty of vision, composure and technical ability to pick-out the unmarked winger on the right touchline with a flat, low cross-field kick, and this time Jones nailed the conversion from the opposite touchline to his earlier miss.
Hauling back three points to a team as committed and well-organised as Heriot’s was going to be a tough ask even if they gale was now on their side, but Marr were entitled to believe they could at least make a game of it, and at this stage every bonus point is vital. Perhaps they believed in their ability to do that a little bit too much, because they seemed just a little bit too keen to chance their arm with grubber kicks which weren’t on and looking to go wide before earning the right to do so.
You can’t help but wonder how much the missing Colin Sturgeon‘s experience, intelligence and sure-footedness could have helped the home team play the right game in the right places on a day when it had to be all about control rather than freedom of expression.
Discipline was also an issue, with Brandon Sweet (killing the ball) and David Andrew (high tackle) both picking up yellow-cards during the final quarter amid a deluge of penalties conceded by the home team.
Struan Cessford became the third Heriot’s player to get over the line and not get the ball down, but by the hour mark Heriot’s were back on top, aided slightly by the wind having died down from the ferocious levels we witnessed in the first half.
Rory Kirkpatrick did well to juggle and eventually safely gather the ball at the same time as bursting the line at pace, and he had replacement scrum-half Sinjin Broad in support, who didn’t quite make it to the try-line, buy was able to recycle for Heriot’s to spread it rightwards for Ross to go over for his second try of the match.
Paul Christie finished off the scoring with six minutes to go when he burst onto an inside ball from King and darted under the posts, after a long period of pressure from the visiting forwards.
“We had to work hard for that,” said Heriot’s head coach Bob McKillop afterwards. “I think Marr defended their line very well, so we had to work hard against that and we had to work hard against the conditions. The rugby wasn’t easy out there, whether you were into the wind or against the wind, so I am pretty pleased with the work-ethic of the boys. I thought the back-row was outstanding both sides of the ball.
“”I think ‘professional’ would be a good way to describe that performance. I was a little bit nervous that the boys’ minds might start to go towards next weekend, but I thought they stuck to the task really, really well, and I think the third quarter won the game for us.”
Teams –
Marr: C Inglis; J Broadfoot, S Bickerstaff ©; L Jarvie, J Jacobson; G Beckwith (R Maiden 42), E McAra (R Anderson 73); S Khan (G Dick 74), B Sweet C Miller, C Young, D Andrew, A Orr (C Steel 55), M Kirk (A Bowler 75), B Jardine (A King 75). Subs: , ,, , J Affleck, , .
Heriot's: D King; Z Ross, T Glendinning, A Hunter, B Evans (P Christie 41); R Jones (S Broad, 49), H MacArthur; A Munro, M Liness (D Neill 41), S Cessford (A Bogle 64), M Keough, J Campbell (P Spence 61), S Anderson (T Dunn 64), R Kirkpatrick, A Johnston.
Referee: David Young
Scorers –
Marr: No Scorers
Heriot’s: Tries: Evans, Glendinning, Ross 2, Christie; Con: Jones 2, King.
Scoring sequence (Heriot’s first): 0-5; 0-10; 0-12; 0-17; 0-19 (h-t) 0-24; 0-26; 0-31.
Yellow cards –
Marr: Sweet (59 mins), Andrew (73 mins)
Player-of-the-Match: This match was won up front, with the scrum setting the tone. Tight-head Struan Cessford was crucial to that, and showed up in the loose as well, but loose-head Angus Munro was just as influential and played the full 80 minutes.
Talking point: Well done to Heriot’s for respecting the integrity of the league by taking a strong team committed to doing the job right to Fullarton for a match which will have implications on who plays in the Premiership next season, when it would have been easy to wrap all their top performers in cotton-wool. Karma has been kind because they didn’t pick up any new injuries which will impact their play-off against Watsonians next weekend.
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