Hard trip to to the Borders but Livi still leave with 5 points

On a lovely summers day in the heartland of Scottish Rugby Livi kicked off heading down the slope , and with supporters still getting settled on the sidelines , Livi found out they were going to in for a hard afternoon as within the first minute Duns Kicked the ball long down field and after a misunderstnading at the back the Duns winger outstripped David Stone for pace and scored the conversation was missed and it was 5-0 Duns before the door of the Livi Bus closed.

The boys in blue would have to use all their experience to keep their undefeated start to the season and after a missed penalty from Duns , they pushed into the Duns Half and after an infringement Dean Edwards popped one over to bring the score to 5-3 , Duns were battling for everything at the background and Livi found it hard to get into their stride, however after 15mins they pushed into the Duns half and after some good phases from the forwards John Bruton nipped down the blind and fed powerhouse Hooker Lee Barrett who had just returned to the team and he crossed in the corner, Edwards missed the conversation and the score stood at 8-5 Livi. This seemed to kick Livi into Life and like last week the scored 2 quick tries , firstly Ross Neil flew under the posts followed quickly after by John Bruton after a great side step on the Full Back, Edwards hit both conversations taking Livi to a 22-5 lead.

The Livi support were starting to turn thoughts to a good win but once again though Duns showed a lot of heart and were playing a good kick and chase game and after an unfortunate loss of footing by full back Ian Simmonds ,the duns winger touched down again to to cut the deficit to 12, this was short lived as just before Half time Edwards knocked over another penalty to put the score to 25-10.

Livi knew the second half would be tougher going up the hill and were not helping themselves with a number of infingements , allowing Duns time with the ball once again the kick over the top worked well for the borders aided by a cruel bounce that meant put the ball over Edwards head , Duns Crossed after 10 mins of the second half and after a good conversation closed the gap to 25-17. Livi knew they would have to work the phases to break Duns down and after some close calls from Stuart Mushet and Dean Edwards it was from a scrum that t Craig Bolan found Ross Neil who slipped the tackle from his opposite number to go over to secure the bonus point, another successful kick from Edwards extended the lead to 32-17 , again the Livi crowd thought the victory was secured but again Duns showed a lot of heart and intensity and coupled with too many infringements by the men in Blue they came back into it again , both kickers exchanged penalties to bring the score to 35-20 but then after a quick penalty and another kick and chase Duns crossed and with a successful conversation their was only 8 in it at 35-27 to livi with 10 mins left.

More infringements put Livi under pressure and with not long left Duns popped over another penalty to make it 35-30 and put themselves in losing bonus point territory , fortunately for Livi it was too late and when Bolan put the ball into touch the referee called of no side and Livi Survived after throwing away a good lead.

Livi left the borders with 5 points and although the blues faithful and coaches had slightly less fingernails Forwards Coach Scott Paris said "Coming to the Borders is always tough and we have to learn lessons from the opposition and raise our intesitiy in the weeks to come, we are only the second team to win here in over a season and the first side to score over 20 points in the same time period so we are still positive we are moving in the right direction"

Livi will put in some hard work at training this week ahead of the visit by another borders side Langholm on saturday and with injuries to Kevin Buchan, Bryan Middlemass and ligament damage to flanker David Stone the physio room will be busy.