Gala on up in rugby’s Arnold Clark National League Division 1 after derby win v Jed-Forest

​One short of a dozen fixtures into the season, head coach Ewen Robbie’s Galashiels side move up one place to fourth, on 30 points, and their hosts, with 28 points, head one spot in the opposite direction.

The division’s other Borderers, Peebles, remain as they were, in eighth place on 21 points, following a 16-14 loss at home at the Gytes to Biggar at the weekend.

Those results see Gala notching up a winning double, having beaten Jed 20-14 in the reverse fixture at home at Netherdale in mid-September, but the Pees were unable to pull off the same trick after winning 25-16 in South Lanarkshire that same day.

The Maroons’ tries at Jedburgh’s Riverside park were scored by right-winger Ben Gill and No 8 Craig Keddie, with fly-half Harris Rutherford adding a conversion and two penalties.

Inside-centre Owen Cranston opened the scoring for head coach Stuiart Johnson’s hosts, converted by openside flanker Finn Scott.

Peebles’ only try on Saturday was touched down by hooker Matt Carryer, with full-back Rory McHaffie adding three penalties.

Fly-half Owen McLeish scored Biggar’s only, with left-winger Euan Bogle adding a conversion and three penalties, the last of them right at the death to win the game.

Gala are at home to basement side Dundee this coming Saturday but Jed and Peebles are both on the road, to seventh-placed Highland and second-from-bottom Boroughmuir respectively. All three of those games kick off at 3pm.

Gala captain Angus Dun was glad to see his side end a three-game losing streak stretching back to mid-October, telling Borders Rugby TV afterwards: “These are the sort of games when you get to the end of the season, you can think ‘we should have done more there, we should have taken points there’, so to get the win away from home against Jed and do the double for the season, it does mean a lot, especially with it being a Border derby.

“These are the games that can really determine where you finish in this league and every point counts, so, though we’re just going away with four and not a try bonus, that doesn’t matter because four’s better than none.”

Jed try-scorer Cranston was less happy about his side squandering a chance of a third victory on the bounce but is hoping they can get back to winning ways in Inverness this coming weekend, saying: “We had a lot of ball but we were just running out of ideas and making individual errors down in the green zone.

“We’d been good at home bar the Stirling game and we’ve had a couple of results here thanks to playing well in the second half and I think we were just expecting that to happen again.

“We wanted to right the wrong of our loss at Gala at the start of the season because, to date, that had probably been our worst performance but, to be honest, that was on a par with it.”

Peebles head coach Graeme Paterson was unhappier still to see his team pass up an opportunity to get out of the division’s relegation zone, adding: “It’s very disappointing.

“We need to reset ourselves and really focus on our next two games against Boroughmuir and Gala as we’re now in a bit of a dog-fight and desperate, I’d say, for wins.”