Peebles fall to third place despite 25-23 win versus Stewart’s Melville in rugby’s Scottish National League Division 2

​Tries from Donald Anderson, Jack Harrison and Matty Carryer, plus two conversions and two penalties from Ross Wolfenden secured a 25-23 victory against Edinburgh’s Stewart’s Melville at home at the Gytes but they couldn’t come up with the fourth try that would have earned them the bonus point required to stay ahead of Falkirk, 50-10 victors away to basement side Aberdeen Grammar at the weekend.

Those results leave the Pees third, with 41 points, and Falkirk second, on 42, both from ten fixtures.

Lasswade stay top, on 43 points from 11 matches, after a six-all draw away to Newton Stewart at the weekend.

Peebles are at home to Aberdeen this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 2pm, that match having been postponed from last month due to adverse weather at the time.

The reverse fixture up north follows on Saturday, January 20, also at 2pm.

Peebles head coach Graeme Paterson admitted his side had made harder work of Saturday’s win than he’d have liked but he was pleased to see them grind out a result in spite of that, telling the club’s Facebook page: “We probably made a bit harder work for ourselves over the 80 minutes than we needed to, but fair play to Stew Mel, they put us under a fair bit of pressure.

“In the first half, I though we really did have a couple of chances that we left out there that maybe would have given us a bit of an easirer ride in the second half, but our discipline just let us down at crucial moments and allowed them a foothold in our 22.”