Boroughmuir 27

Gala 31

Eilidh Walker at Meggetland

GALA secured a bonus point win against Boroughmuir on Saturday with Edinburgh wing Rory Scholes scoring four tries for the Maroons in an action-packed game at Meggetland.

It took just four minutes for Scholes to score the first with Graham Spiers making the initial break, Edinburgh centre Sasa Tofilau made further yards before his teammate Scholes crossed the line. Gregor Hunter missed the conversion.

Boroughmuir replied straight away with a try from centre Mark Hare and a conversion from Chris Laidlaw giving the hosts a 7-5 lead.

Boroughmuir’s backline were dangerous from the outset but a calm Gala defence denied several further attempts from the hosts to cross again in the first half.

Fly-half Chris Laidlaw scored the only other points of the first half with a penalty for Boroughmuir just before the break taking the half-time score to 10-5.

After the interval Scholes charged over the line once again with less than 10 minutes played of the second half, with Hunter providing the conversion.

Just two minutes later the Gala defence faltered, Laidlaw ran through, adding a try to his points haul, although he missed the conversion taking the score to 15-12.

Gala soon made up for this lapse in concentration when Scholes crossed for his third, Hunter added the conversion to regain the lead 15-19.

With just over ten minutes left of the match Gala made it clear they wanted the bonus point.

Tofilau led a break for the line with Chris Keen adding Gala’s fourth try of the match. Hunter landed the conversion to further their lead to 15-26.

With minutes left on the clock Scholes scored Gala’s final try taking the score to 15-31.

A late rally from Boroughmuir saw the hosts score two tries within the last five minutes through Greg Cannie and Jordan Edmunds. Cannie converted his try to take the final score to 27-31.

This bonus point win saw Gala move ahead of Stirling County to take seventh in the Premiership table, to remain in the chasing pack in the mid-table.

Gala Head Coach, Chris Dalgleish said: “I’m just pleased with the result, we knew the way the league table was we had to get a wee bit of space between us and the teams at the bottom.

“To get the bonus, is just that, a bonus, with the three guys we had from Edinburgh, we knew if we could secure the ball we would cause problems and I think all of the guys were excellent.

“We are very happy to come up here and get the win, Boroughmuir are difficult to play against with some great players and they’ve been playing some really attractive rugby.

“We’ve got a tough game with Hawks next and then Currie, Ayr and then Melrose, so it’s a tough run coming up and we need to make sure our guys are fit.”

Gala: Graham Spiers, Rory Scholes, Sasa Tofilau, Paul Hendry, Alex Northam, Gregor Hunter, Connor Adams, Chris Keen, Matt Carryer, Dean Brooker, Chris Weir, Cameron Pate, Rob Louw, Stevie Cairns, Harry Borthwick

Replacements: Curtis Reynolds, Opeta Palepoi, Alan Emond, Lewis Berg, Craig Robertson