The city team were big in the forwards and their pack contained Simon Taylor, the Scottish and British Lions back row player. While he himself was not the outstanding player, he did orchestrate many of the city teams forwards drives. In fact it was Taylor with a catch and drive at a lineout on the Peebles 22 that began the move that led to Rory Steele the city teams left wing scoring the only try of the afternoon. From that lineout the Watsonians backs transferred the ball along the backs to Steele who just sneaked in at the corner. Prior to that Jonno Swaitek looked to have scored for Peebles. He picked up a loose ball at the back of a Watsonian’s lineout five metres from their line. He dived over but the referee, Daniel Shaw, who also disallowed a Peebles score at GHA, judged that the Peebles No.8 has knocked the ball on.

It was nip and tuck for most of the first half with defences on top. Most of the game was played between the 22s with Peebles who did have the wind at their backs having several forward charges at the city try line but they could not cross.

It was not until the 37th minute that Peebles got points on the board. Devlyn Smith put in a big tackle on his opposite number and a ruck was formed. The city men were penalised. Up stepped the reliable Raeburn and he slotted the goal. The same player, in the 42nd minute of the half, kicked his second penalty to give Peebles the half time lead. A Peebles worthy was heard to say: “I wish it was full time and not half time.” At the start of the second half the rain started to fall and the wind was coming down Tweed and getting stronger in favour of the visitors. There was early pressure from Watsonians and Peebles managed to clear the ball from their goal area with a good kick into the wind by Donald Anderson. However, Watsonians had brought on Tom Hart as a replacement scrum half. His tactics for the remainder of the game were good. He used the up and under, the wind and the punt to good affect. Everytime it seemed that Peebles got into the opposition half and put pressure on their opponents, Hart kicked the ball deep into the Peebles half and the home team had to start all over again.

It got even more difficult 14 minutes into the half when Matt Carryer was shown the yellow card for taking an opponent out when he was in the air catching the ball. There was no malice in the tackle just bad timing but a definite 'yellow’. Peebles had to re-adjust the pack with the loss of Carryer and they really stuck in and only lost three points in the 10 minutes they were down to 14 men. Watsonians did have an opportunity to score a second try but their backs knocked on in front of the Peebles posts and Peebles manaed again to clear their lines.

Four penalties were kicked by Tom Hart in that second half and would have been voted the visitors man-of-the-match for his contribution in pinning Peebles into their own half for much of the second period of this game.

With the half moon appearing in the clearing skies over Kingsmeadows House, the referee brought this not to be remembered game to a close.

This weekend, Peebles are again in league action and the games don’t get any easier. The visitors to The Gytes will be Selkirk. They are flying high at the top of the league and under their new coach and Peebles old coach Peter Wright they are unbeaten. It’s a 2.30pm kick off at The Gytes.