Haddington made the short trip over to West Lothian to face Linlithgow in the Tennent's East Region Division 1 on Saturday. After the disappointment of last weekend’s loss to North Berwick, Haddington were looking to put on a show and make amends.

Head coach Clifford Livingstone made some changes to the team that took to the field last weekend with Stephen Tennant coming in for Kevin Quinn at prop and Kyle Munro replacing Rab Watt at hooker. Dan Witko was unfortunately unavailable due to picking up a knee injury last weekend, but this allowed Alex Leven to come in for his debut at back row. In the backs, Freddie Cunningham replaced his brother Ewan at inside centre and Jamie Paterson made his return from injury at scrum half - replacing Kirk Washington-Mackay who is out with a head injury.

Linlithgow started the game very well, with Haddington gifting the home team with a ten-point lead after only 8 minutes of play gone on the clock. Some poor tackling from the Reds, allowed Linlithgow to score through their backline and the Linlithgow fly-half was able to add the extra 2 points. 7-0.

After being awarded a scrum on the Haddington 22-meter line, Linlithgow picked from the base of the scrum and carried the ball into the midfield through their number 8. Another phase of play saw the home side crash the ball up the middle which resulted in Haddington giving away a penalty. Linlithgow converted to take the scores to 10-0.

Haddington managed to get on the score board in the 32nd minute of the game, with fly-half Donald Bathgate slotting a penalty from just outside the oppositions 22-meter line to take the scores to 10-3. Bathgate was on hand again shortly afterwards to kick another penalty for Haddington to reduce the gap to 10-6. With halftime looming, there was still sometime on the clock for Linlithgow to collect another converted try to go into halftime with a 17-6 lead.

A halftime chat from the Haddington team management certainly did the trick for this young Haddington side, with Ben Moffat scoring under the sticks with less than 2 minutes of play gone. A solid scrum from the Reds on the Linlithgow 22-meter line, allowed Bathgate to release his backline and Moffat sailed through the home sides defence to cross the whitewash. Bathgate added the extra 2 points to reduce the gap to 17-13.

It didn't take Haddington long to get back on the scoreboard, with the Reds being awarded another penalty for an infringement by the home side on the 53-minute mark. Bathgate, slotting the extras to take the scores to 17-16.

Unfortunately for Haddington, Linlithgow managed to score one last converted try with less than 10 minutes of play left to take the final score to 24-16 to Linlithgow.

This was a disappointing day for Haddington. After battling back from being 10-0 down, it was frustrating to walk away with no points at all. The travelling Haddington support described this as our best performance so far this season, but in the end we were hampered by too many lost line outs and missed kicks to touch.

Next up Haddington face Broughton RFC at home, with a 3pm kick off. Please come down and show your support.