James Dow on the ball for Peebles as they beat Jed-Forest 35-24 at home at the Gytes on Saturday in rugby’s Arnold Clark National League Division 1 and Border League (Photo: Stephen Mathison)James Dow on the ball for Peebles as they beat Jed-Forest 35-24 at home at the Gytes on Saturday in rugby’s Arnold Clark National League Division 1 and Border League (Photo: Stephen Mathison)
James Dow on the ball for Peebles as they beat Jed-Forest 35-24 at home at the Gytes on Saturday in rugby’s Arnold Clark National League Division 1 and Border League (Photo: Stephen Mathison)

Derby win lifts Peebles away from Arnold Clark National League Division 1’s relegation zone

​Peebles and Jed-Forest have swapped places in rugby’s Arnold Clark National League Division 1 after the former’s 35-24 derby victory hosting the latter on Saturday.

The Pees move up one place to sixth, with Jed heading one spot in the opposite direction to seventh, just outwith the three-team relegation zone.

Eight games into the new season, head coach Graeme Paterson’s Peebles team are on 19 points, with opposite number Stuart Johnson’s Jedburgh outfit on 18.

Gala remain the Borders’ top dogs in the division, sitting fifth with 24 points, despite losing 39-30 away to third-from-bottom Boroughmuir at the weekend.

Saturday’s derby at the Gytes was a Border League double-header and it sees the Pees picking up their first points of the regional campaign.

They’re now fourth in those standings, on four points from two fixtures, with Jed bottom, on none from three. Selkirk are top, on eight points from two games, and Gala second, also on eight points but having played one match more.

Next up on national league duty for Peebles and Jed are respectively a trip to bottom-of-the-table Dundee and visit to Riverside Park from third-placed Glasgow Academicals, both 3pm kick-offs this coming Saturday.

Both resume their Border League campaigns with stand-alone fixtures against Arnold Clark Premiership opposition on Saturday, November 16, Jed away to Hawick at Mansfield Park at 1pm and Peebles at Melrose’s Greenyards two hours later.

Hooker Matt Carryer at the double and lock Ross Brown at the double, along with left-winger David Collins, scored tries for Peebles on Saturday, all five being converted by full-back Rory McHaffie.

The visitors’ tries were touched down by No 8 Garry Young, fly-half Aaron Weatherhead, outside-centre Rory Marshall and tighthead prop Paulo Ferreira, with hooker Finn Scott converting two of them.

Try-scorer Brown was delighted to see his side come up trumps, telling Borders Rugby TV: “We felt like it was going to come.

“We were confident going into the game. We felt like we could do them.

“We had a lot of pressure early on but we couldn’t really convert it into points, but the message on the pitch was very much ‘don’t panic, it’ll come’, and it did come eventually and when it did, it was really good.

“It feels like a big win but we’ve got to back it up next week away to Dundee.

"We’d had a disappointing couple of weeks beforehand. We really should have put Highland away, to be honest, and we were unlucky not to come away with more away to GHA, and that says a lot about where we think we are as a team.

“It’s a tough league, there’s no doubt about that, and three go down at the end of the season, which is really challenging for all the teams involved, but we think we’re good enough to stay in this league and hopefully over our remaining games we’ll show that.”

Johnson was less happy about his side’s performance, adding: “We just can’t put it together for spells long enough to win games and we can’t keep the foot on the throat when we get in front for some reason.

“When they need to do it and the chips are down, we can do it. It’s when we’re looking comfy that we need to kick on a little bit more.

“It’s a mentality thing. It’s something that’s broken and it’s something we’ve been trying to work on but it’s a work in progress.”

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