Gala No 8 Craig Keddie and hooker Jack Easson halting a Dundee attack on Saturday (Photo: Jon Mussen/Dundee RFC)Gala No 8 Craig Keddie and hooker Jack Easson halting a Dundee attack on Saturday (Photo: Jon Mussen/Dundee RFC)
Gala No 8 Craig Keddie and hooker Jack Easson halting a Dundee attack on Saturday (Photo: Jon Mussen/Dundee RFC)

​Clean sweep of wins for region’s three representatives in rugby’s Arnold Clark National League Division 1

​The region’s three representatives in Arnold Clark National League Division 1 racked up their first clean sweep of the new rugby season on Saturday.

​Gala remain the Borders’ top dogs in the division after four rounds of matches, moving up one place to fourth, with 14 points, after beating Dundee by 27-17 away.

Jed-Forest, 27-21 victors at home to Highland, are just one place and two points behind them, on 12, and Peebles are seventh on 11 after beating Boroughmuir 26-15 at home.

This coming Saturday will bring with it the division’s second Borders derby of the current campaign – following a 20-14 win for Gala hosting Jed on Saturday, September 14 – and it will see the Maroons at home again, this time to Peebles, with kick-off at 3pm.

Jed are away to table-topping Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians, currently on four wins out of four and with a near-100% total of 19 points to their name, at the same time.

Gala’s try-scorers at Dundee’s Mayfield Sports Centre were outside-centre Murray Wilson, right-winger Ben Gill, loosehead prop Gavin Fisher, left-winger Gregor Collins and blindside flanker Tim McKavanagh, with scrum-half Lachlan Johnson adding a conversion.

Touching down for their hosts were scrum-half Grant Harley and left-winger Jack Morris, with outside-centre Stuart Kirk kicking two conversions and a penalty.

Captain and lock Clark Skeldon scored two tries for the hosts at Jedburgh’s Riverside Park and full-back Lewis Young got their other right at the death, with fly-half Aaron Weatherhead converting all three of them and also kicking two penalties.

Their Inverness opposition’s tries were scored by left-winger Magnus Henry, full-back Adriu Muritoki and loosehead prop Stephen Murray, with fly-half Scott Fraser kicking two penalties.

A hat-trick from hooker Matt Carryer and another try from right-winger Buster Davidson earned all five points for the Pees versus their Edinburgh opposition at the Gytes, with full-back Rory McHaffie adding three conversions.

Gala fly-half Harris Rutherford was delighted to see his side notch up their third win of the season, telling Borders Rugby TV afterwards: “We had a bit of a shaky start – we didn’t get off the bus.

“In the second half, we went out all guns blazing and, as a team, we played really well.

“Our discipline was probably a large part of the issue in the first half but we managed to turn it around and play some really good rugby in the second half.

“The boys sruck in well and it was a good team performance and individually.”

Skeldon is also glad to see his team in the top half of the table, saying: “We set out our stall at the beginning of the season that we want to win our home games and turn Riverside back into a kind of fortress.

“We’ve been to GHA before and every time we play there, it’s a tough game.

“We know how they like to play and we’ll work through the week on figuring out how we can go up there and get a win.”

Peebles head coach Graeme Paterson added: “It was a great result for us.

“It was a great win and great to get five points and we look forward now to Gala.”

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