Linlithgow travelled to Neilson Park on Saturday for Haddington's second last home game of the season. The away side were full of confidence having beaten Portobello RFC 78-5 in their last game. With both sides playing a similar style of rugby, this was all set to be a close encounter for the two teams.

Haddington were delighted to hand a debut to Joss Arnold in the backrow. The Edinburgh and Scotland prospect has a big future ahead of him and it was fantastic to see another School of Rugby player graduate into the Haddington 1st XV.

Linlithgow opted to play down the hill in the first half and the first 30 mins of the game was a tight affair, with both teams putting on great defensive displays to deny each other. It was Haddington who managed to get on the scoreboard first, with the home side being awarded a penalty. Captain Connor Munro signalled to the sticks and Nick Bell stepped up to slot the penalty and take the scores to 3-0.

With 10 minutes of the 1st half left, Linlithgow managed to get the scoreboard ticking in their favour, with a penalty and a try to finish the half 3-8 up.

With Haddington now playing back down towards the clubhouse in the second half, unfortunately it was Linlithgow who opened the half with a try. Some poor defensive in the Haddington mid-field allowed the Linlithgow blind-side winger to sale through and offload to score out wide.

Shortly afterwards, Linlithgow were awarded another penalty right in front of the posts after Haddington were penalised for a high tackle to take the scores to 3-16.

On the 60 minute mark, the away side managed to score again and the Linlithgow stand off was able to add the extra two points from a difficult conversion to take the score to 3-23.

The home side should be proud of their first half performance and need to build on this at training this week to ensure the Reds can play like that for the full 80 mins.

The Haddington Man of the Match was awarded to Connor Munro (sponsored by David Luke). A big thank you must also go to Grant McKelvey, Bryan Craig, Murray Craig, Mark Leonard, Scott Marnoch and Richard Scott for their hospitality on Saturday and for sponsoring the match.

Next up, Haddington travel into Edinburgh on Saturday 25th of Feb to face Broughton RFC.