Second-half fightback earns first win of Tennent's Premiership rugby season for Jed-Forest

Jed-Forest winger Robbie Shirra-Gibb scoring a try against Musselburgh on Saturday (Photo: Bill McBurnie)

Jed-Forest have notched up their first win of their current Tennent’s Premiership rugby campaign, thanks to second-half fightback overturning a ten-point deficit and taking their try tally to seven.

That post-interval resurgence at home to Musselburgh saw the Jedburgh side run up a 43-34 win after being 22-12 down at the break.

Their try-scorers at Riverside Park were Owen Cranston, Paulo Ferreira, Gregor Young, his twin brother Lewis Young, Mason Cullen twice and Robbie Shirra-Gibb, with Lewis Walker and Lewis Young adding two conversions apiece.

Musselburgh’s five tries were scored by Max Outram, James Ferguson at the double, Matt Crawford and Finlay Thomson, with Danny Owenson converting three and also kicking a penalty.

Jed-Forest No 3 Paulo Ferreira, supported by Harry Meadows, on the ball against Musselburgh (Pic: Bill McBurnie)

That result leaves head coach Andrew Brown’s side third bottom of the table going into this coming Saturday’s trip to second-placed Edinburgh Academical for a game kicking off at 3pm but, with seven points from four games, they’re now four clear of second-bottom Musselburgh rather than above them only on points difference.

Jed captain Clark Skeldon was heartened by his team’s post-half-time comeback, similar to the one they staged against Glasgow Hawks seven days previously but with the added bonus of delivering victory rather than falling just short, and told Borders Rugby TV: “We seem to be getting into a habit of giving teams a head start – we didn’t really come out of the box firing, and that’s something we’ve spoken about – but our second-half performance really got us in front and we pressed on from there and managed to get a bonus-point win.

“That’s five points we spoke about needing before kick-off and I’m really happy that we’ve got them.

“It’s a long season. We’re not really too worried about positions in the table just now. We just want to try and build some momentum and get some points.

Jed-Forest winger Mason Cullen on his way to scoring a try against Musselburgh (Pic: Bill McBurnie)

“It’ll be difficult on the road next week but we want to keep trying to pick up points and win our home games really.”

Next up for Jed after next week’s journey up to Edinburgh is a home game against another capital side, bottom-of-the-table Heriot’s Blues, on Saturday, October 8, and Skeldon sees that as an opportunity to put a bit more distance between his team and their visitors, currently with only one point on the board, that time round.

He’s insistent that he and his team-mates won’t be reading too much into the current league standings and taking anything for granted against Heriot’s, promoted as last season’s Tennent’s National League Division 1 champions, however.

“They’re all big games. It’s a difficult league. If you see the results today, everybody’s beating everybody, so we’re not taking anything for granted or getting ahead of ourselves,” said the second-row.

Jed-Forest's Lewis Young scoring against Musselburgh (Pic: Bill McBurnie)

“We’ve got a good foundation to build on now and we’ll just take each game as it comes really.

“Everybody’s really coming together now.

“The team we put out today showed what we can do and we’re back scoring.

“Andy’s got us playing some good rugby so we’re happy with that.”