Peebles 38

Falkirk 29

Allan Beveridge

at The Gytes

FALKIRK'S two late tries may have taken the shine off this emphatic bonus-point victory, but the result keeps Peebles in contention at the top of National League Two.

Peebles had been trailing at the interval, by 17 points to seven, yet a terrific second half saw the home team run out comfortable winners.

Greg Raeburn, who had received two yellow cards leading to a red the previous week, had been deemed eligible to play by the SRU disciplinary panel.

But the influential fly-half could do little to stem the tide which saw Falkirk take a 15th minute lead.

After going close a couple of times, the visitors went in front from a Lawson try.

Call kicked the extras for a 7-0 advantage.

Without several regular players, Peebles looked out of sorts, especially at lineouts.

Falkirk's second try came from a lineout on the five-metre line with number eight McCulloch driving through to touch down.

Call again kicked the conversion.

Trailing by 14 points inside the opening 20 minutes wasn't the ideal start for unbeaten Peebles.

The home team did have a great chance to respond just a couple of minutes later but Rohan Maciver was pulled back by the referee as he crossed the line for a forward pass.

Peebles eventually got onto the scoresheet in the 35th minute after Roddy Guiney collected a good lineout ball to offload for Neil Hogarth to sprint up the line for a try.

Raeburn added the conversion.

But there was still time for Call to kick a penalty before the half time whistle.

The only glimmer of light for the Gytes faithful was that Peebles couldn't play much worse in the second half.

Thankfully it was a completely contrasting performance from the home team after the interval.

Some great handling in the 49th minute led to Kieran Brown scoring in the right-hand corner.

Raeburn's conversion reduced the gap to three points.

A yellow card for Call gave Peebles a further advantage.

Maciver was stopped just short of the line a couple of minutes later but he popped the ball up for Ruairidh Britton to score.

Remarkably Peebles scored their bonus point try just a few minutes later.

Maciver collected the ball from the back of a ruck to charge over the line.

Although Raeburn's conversion struck the bar, Peebles were now 24-17 in front.

James Dow was next to get his name on the scoresheet after capitalising on good combination play between the backs and forwards in the 62nd minute.

The Raeburn kick made the score 31-17.

Dow scored again with 10 minutes remaining - this time breaking from 40 metres out to touch down beneath the posts.

Raeburn made the score 38-17.

Although Falkirk came back into the game in the closing seven or eight minutes, and scored two late tries, they couldn't haul back the Peebles advantage.

In the end it was a satisfying victory, but Peebles will need to improve when they travel to Edinburgh to face Stewart's Melville this week.