RECENT seasons have seen newly-promoted teams struggle to get up to speed in the top flight, but Watsonians hit the ground running with a hard-fought win which suggests they may have loftier ambitions in this campaign than mere survival.

Even allowing for the fact that Heriot’s were some way short of the form that gave them the league, the cup and the Charity Shield this season, this was an impressive performance by Marcus di Rollo’s side. They have wisely recruited players with Premiership experience, including several from Gala, and now have the strength up front and in defence to complement their traditional flair in attack.

Unsurprisingly, the head coach could hardly have been more pleased with his team’s mature performance. “As good as we could have imagined before the game,” was Di Rollo’s verdict. “We’re a new team, but we’re starting to gel. They’re the champions, they won everything last year, so we couldn’t ask for more than to beat them on the opening day of the season.

“We’ve hopefully got a bit of a hard edge to us, and a set piece - you need a front five. If you can scrum well, if you can do your set piece, you stand a chance against anyone. We’ve got some really good players in the backs as well, and we can create. “We know that. It was just the other part that we needed.”

After losing the Charity Shield eight days earlier at home to a far sharper Melrose team, Heriot’s have lost the air of near-invincibility that they acquired in the spring, when they were invariably able to raise their game when it mattered most against their closest rivals for trophies. But, with key players still to return from injury, and possibly a couple of additions to the squad to be made, Phil Smith is confident that they will again be in contention for a place in the play-offs.

“I wouldn’t say we’re hitting our straps, but as I learned in the last couple of years, you don’t have to win every game,” the champions’ coach said. “Top four, that’s all you’ve got to do.

“We’ve been looking all summer to try to get people, but some people don’t want to come to us because they think they’re not going to get into our team. Well, are you ambitious or not?”

Neither team was too ambitious in a dull first half which ended at 6-6, with two penalties apiece from the home team’s Ewan Scott and Heriot’s Alex Hagart. Those scores apart, the most significant incidents were the two yellow cards for Rory Drummond and, in the last action of the half, Dylan Mason.

With No 8 Drummond off the park, Watsonians withstood a Heriot’s attempt to score a pushover try. Playing the first ten minutes of the second half without Mason, by contrast, Heriot’s soon fell behind when Diarmaid Dee broke free to score under the posts. Scott converted that try, and also added the two points when, with Heriot’s back to full strength, Watsonians were awarded a penalty try after a pushover attempt was halted illegally.

With play opening up, Heriot’s hit back through Liam Steele after creating an overlap on the left, and Hagart’s conversion took them to within seven points. But Euan McKirdy’s unconverted try gave the home team some breathing space, and although Josh Laird closed the gap again, time ran out for the champions and they had to be content with a losing bonus point. They might not even have got that, but Watsonians cautiously opted to kick a penalty to touch in the last play of the game rather than going for goal.

That first half apart, the most disappointing if predictable aspect of the afternoon was the size of the crowd. These two traditional rivals have met in front of attendances many times larger than the 600 or so who filed into Myreside, and, while the club game as a whole has suffered a decline in interest over the past two decades, Di Rollo hopes that the return of Edinburgh Rugby to the ground in the new year could at least heighten interest in his own team.

Preparations for that return and the erection of temporary stands are already evident in the shortening of the in-goal areas and the narrowing of the pitch, and, as a former Edinburgh player himself, Di Rollo also hopes the move will be good for the professional players. “I think just the whole thing around Myreside will be given a boost, which will be very good for the club and good for the school,” he said. “We’ll take something out of it - it was great in the old days when there were decent crowds here, so it will be nice to see that, and maybe they’ll come along to watch us the day after.

“I played for Edinburgh here and really enjoyed it, because it was a real club feel. Anything that can get them back to that benefits the players.”