Published: Friday, 19th March, 2010 11:11am

Peebles punished by Kelso's survival experts

Peebles 0 v 19 Kelso

Peebles struggled against a hungrier Kelso side.

AT a windless, mild night at the Gytes one would think an ideal night for a handling game. Alas not as mistakes aplenty were made by both sides.

Kelso showed right from the start that after their victory over league leaders Stirling County the previous weekend, they were out to cement their place in Premier 2.

The visitors were out of the blocks quickly forcing the Tweed Homes sponsored Gytes men on the defensive in their own 22.

With little let off, Peebles defended stoutly for the first 10 minutes before a high tackle on 10 minutes in front of the posts just outside the 22 gave Kelso their first score in this Scottish Hydro Premier 2 match when Greg Ponton kicked the penalty.

A great break by Darren Kerr from defence had the home support on their feet, but he was unable to get the ball away to the supporting player inside the Kelso 22 and the visitors cleared their lines with a long kick back to the Peebles 22.

From the lineout a strong breakout by Peebles was stopped on the Kelso 22 and another long kick cleared the lines.

On 21 minutes Peebles were unable to clear their own line out and Kelso won a second penalty in front of the posts which allowed Greg Ponton to land his second for a 6 point lead.

After 30 minutes, Peebles were coming into the game forcing Kelso back, and more and more of the action happening in the visitor's half.

However the visitors again broke out; Dale Clancy received the second of his blue light passes and survived by getting the ball away, but as Kelso recovered their two centres combined well to get within 5 metres of the Peebles line, stopped only by the strong tackling of the home defence and the ball was forced into touch.

The interval arrived with no further score.

With only 3 minutes on the clock for the second period a penalty was awarded for a high tackle allowing Greg Ponton to stroke over his third from 35 metres straight in front of the posts for a 9 point lead.

Ponton fired over his 4th penalty to take Kelso 12 pints clear and on 25 minutes, they stole a Peebles line and got to the 5 metre line.

From the resulting scrum, No 8, Ian Moody picked up and went over for the only try of the night; an easy conversion by Ponton took the score to 19.

On 30 minutes, Steve Gee received a yellow for a second high tackle but this seemed to spur Peebles on a bit and they arguably had their best period as on attack they forced Kelso to give away several penalties in a row - it got them close but not close enough.

Peebles. Aitken, McConnell, Clark, Harvey, Thompson, Borthwick, Sangster, Oakes, Strachan, Warnock, David Anderson, Gee, Clancy, Kerr & Donald Anderson. Replacements Keen, Clark, Irvine & Hogarth