PETER WRIGHT acknowledged that his team had ridden their luck when picking up a vital 12-20 victory at the end of a tense battle against fellow strugglers Marr at Fullarton Park, but given the number of bad-luck stories his team have lived through this season he was not about to lose too much sleep over this most recent twist in a fascinating battle at the bottom end of the league.
“It was a weird game. We had all the elements in our favour in the first half, playing down the hill with the wind at our backs, and we were 7-0 down after half an hour. But we managed to get back into it with a try from Aubrey Mncube and a penalty before the break,” he reflected.
“But that meant we were only 7-8 up with the wind and the slope against us. They scored and their tails were up, but we managed to score right back through a charged down kick through Archie Erskine. Fair play to Marr, they kept on going and they had ten minutes camped on our line, but they couldn’t break us, which was down to a combination of great defence by our boys and maybe a few bad decisions by them.”
“So we managed to get through that period of real pressure and then scored another try through Erskine again. After that we dominated the final 20 minutes.”
“It must have been a really tough one for Marr to take. If I’m being honest, they probably deserved to win it, and Boroughmuir have been in that situation enough times this year for me to know exactly how that feels.”
“Fortunately for us, we were on the other side of that equation this week, and now I’m just going to go home and put my feet up because it has been a really tough week – it has been a really tough season.”
The victory meant Boroughmuir climbed off the foot of the table at their opponents’ expense. They are now three points clear of automatic relegation with a game in hand, but despite having the easiest run-ins of all the teams in the frame to go down this season, Wright knows there is no scope to relax.
“Sitting on the bus on the way home, I was enjoying the atmosphere. The boys were in good form at the back, they were obviously relieved but not getting ahead of themselves, and I just had a quiet moment thinking to myself that if that result had gone the other way then we would have been five points behind and Marr would have had their tails up – everything would have been a very different atmosphere on the bus. The whole thing can swing away from you very quickly so we need to come back in on Tuesday ready to refocus on playing Heriot’s.”
Next weekend’s opponents dropped out of the top four play-off places after losing at home to Watsonians.
“They are struggling a bit for form at the moment and we will fancy our chances after giving them a run for their money at Goldenacre earlier in the season but gave away a few soft tries, but they won’t have given up on the play-offs yet so it’s going to be another huge game for both clubs.”