Kirkcaldy Sevens: First victory in 28 years for Dunfermline

This year's Kirkcaldy Sevens tournament comprised three separate competitions, with ladies and colts preceding the senior men's.

The ladies had opened the proceedings on Friday evening under floodlights while the colts played on Saturday morning with the final opening the afternoon session.

Kirkcaldy won both these competition with the ladies defeating Grangemouth in their final while Kirkcaldy colts just pipped Dunfermline 38-37 in a pulsating encounter.

As happens in far too many sevens tournaments nowadays there were the inevitable late call-offs with Strathmore and the charity team Tryomphe failing to show.

Even the top rated Kings of the Sevens series in the Borders are affected in this way with Saturday's Hawick Sevens proceeding short of three sides which called off.

Often sevens tournaments clash with national league and cup games or simply lack of player interest.

In future, Hawick are planning to run their sevens in August which is free of clashes with national competitive games.

This a route which Kirkcaldy could try in the near future.

The Heggie Cup competition opened with a tie between Kirkcaldy and Glenrothes with the Blues comfortably progressing 35-21.

This was followed by the crowd pleasers Wolverines being just edged out by Grangemouth 28-22 after leading 17-14 at half time.

Eventual winners Dunfermline started shakily against Perthshire with their four converted tries outscoring Shire's three unconverted efforts.

In a later tie Glenrothes forward Chris Docherty became the first player in the 69-year history of Kirkcaldy Sevens to be red carded after a dangerous tackle in his side's game against Wolverines.

Shorthanded Glens just held on to win 19-14.

The summer-like weather attracted a much larger than usual crowd who must have been disappointed with some of the fare on show.

With every side guaranteed two games first round losers lined up against each other in the plate competition where there was a distinct lack of quality.

In the plate final for first round loser the President's Vll beat Glenrothes, who had a second player sent off in the shape of Shaun Gray.

After two not very well contested semi finals Kirkcaldy and Dunfermline emerged to play off for the Heggie Cup.

The Blues took the lead within 15 seconds of the start with Jacob Ramsay collecting the Dunfermline kick off ball to stride away to the goal line for a Finlay Smith converted try.

That was as good as it got for the Blues as an eager Dunfermline side snapped up every Kirkcaldy error, especially with misplaced kicks.

By half time the McKane Park team led 14-12, and although Kirkcaldy had a third try the second half belonged to Dunfermline who ended as 26-17 winners.