Head coach Bryan Craig used the break in league action to rest a number of key players, with Callum Champion and captain Garry Cockburn amongst those given a break.

That meant a recall for Rab Watt at hooker, while Alex Spence moved to number eight in the absence of Champion. Euan Herkes took over the captaincy of the side.

Despite defeat, however, Craig was upbeat about his side's performance. He said: "We used this week to give a few boys a rest before a big league game against Lasswade.

"We created two decent scores and I thought Sandy (McCutcheon) was also looking dangerous whenever he got the ball on the left wing.

The hosts made the better of the early exchanges, and crossed for a brace of tries following some poor Reds defending.

In what was an end-to-end match, captain for the day Herkes got the visitors back into it with a try of his own on quarter of an hour. Nick Bell added the conversion to reduce the arrears.

James Ferguson, last season's top try scorer, was again on the score-sheet this term as he got on the end of a well-created move to score. Bell this time, though, was wide with the conversion, but the Reds were back in the match.

However, Craig and his players were left bemoaning a second-half collapse that saw the hosts take charge.

They ran in a trio of tries in the second period to claim their second successive win in the county's premier derby clash, while the Reds failed to get on the board in the second period.

Craig said post-match: "We competed for an hour and unfortunately after that we switched off a bit, which isn't good enough, especially after the performances we've been putting in recently.

A disappointing afternoon for the visitors, but with a number of key men set to return for this weekend's trip to Lasswade, the return to league duty is likely to bring an improved performance from the Reds.