Ayr’s all conquering start to the Tennent’s Premiership season continued apace on Saturday with a sixth successive bonus-point win of the campaign, with Boroughmuir being the victims on this occasion.
Centre Stafford McDowall crossed twice in the first quarter of the match to set the tone for the encounter, with further tries from full-back Grant Anderson and stand-off Frazier Climo, against a solitary touch down from Boroughmuir hooker Johnny Matthews giving the league leaders a commanding 5-26 lead at the break, with the bonus point already in the bag.
Boroughmuir made a bright start to the second half with a huge hit from Edinburgh pro Senitiki Nayolo on Ayr flanker Gregor Henry turning over the ball, and Jordan Edmunds showing plenty of pace and power to finish off an impressive passage of play.
But the hosts failed to deal with the restart, and when Ayr punished them for that inaccuracy through a Robbie Nairn try, any chance of a comeback from the Edinburgh side was extinguished.
A further try from Ayr captain Blair Macpherson put the gloss on the victory, but to Boroughmuir’s credit they battled back to get a third try through Matthews again, and were pushing hard for the fourth when the 80 minutes ran out.
“They are the best team in the league, it’s as simple as that,” said Boroughmuir coach Peter Wright afterwards. “They’ve got physicality and firepower everywhere. Their guys are big, but they are also good rugby players – they run hard and direct, they offload well in contact, and they’ve got some young boys in their pack who are just getting better and better.
“I'm pleased that we stuck in, we battled away, we got three tries, and we pushed hard to get that fourth one but didn’t have quite enough firepower left.”
Meanwhile, Ayr coach Peter Murchie said: “We played pretty well today, we had the right mind-set. Defensively, it was, again, one of our better performances. We knew the way Boroughmuir were going to play coming into the game – they have a number of guys who are dangerous players – so we did a bit of work on that, and our guys made their tackles. Set-piece was good as well, and we took our chances in attack.”
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