Kirkcaldy Rugby Club: Head coach Quintan Sanft thrilled as his team recover from 14-point deficit to earn crucial league win over Stirling County

Two first half Rory Brown tries – both of which were converted by Finlay Smith – saw the Blues trailing 19-14 at half-time to a County side who crossed the whitewash three times and landed two conversions in the opening 40 minutes.

But Mark Duckett’s 56th-minute try – to which Smith again added the extras – earned the victory for Kirkcaldy, who continued to dominate the game despite having Kieran Mitchell red carded for retaliation with 10 minutes remaining.

“I think it was the rustiness of not having a game for over a month and also missing training that didn’t help us in the first half.

"But in the second half, once the players got the ball in their hands they started to feel more comfortable and the game started to click in. We pretty much dominated the second half of that game. I don’t think Stirling actually made it into our 22.

"Folk have got to remember that these boys are not professionals. We can’t force them to keep coming to training during the Christmas period so we actually shut down for Christmas, had no training sessions until that first week in January.

"These boys are amateurs, of course they’re going to go and blow out. But it was our job to make sure that when they first came back in on January 8 that we did a conditioning session to make sure we ran out some of the alcohol and food they had over the festive period.

"I’m delighted with the way the boys responded.

"It’s been an up and down season as well so it hasn’t been the best of seasons in terms of squad, boys injured, boys coming in and out, but Stirling County was an important game in terms of making sure we stayed in this league and to push us away from Aberdeen and Berwick.

"It was a pressure game for Stirling as well because they were just below us with two games in hand.

"Because of that there were a few scuffles in the game. I think the ref had just had enough of too many scuffles.

"There was a scuffle right before the red card. Kieran just happened to be right in front of the ref when he threw the boy down to the ground and got a red card for retaliation after their boy had thrown a punch.

"The boy that threw the punch got yellow carded. He could have been sent off as well.”

On the fine contribution of two-try hero Brown, Sanft added: "Rory has been outstanding all year. He’s a dynamic player who carries the ball hard and is one of the besrt defenders we have.

"He’s been an all round good player for us this year.

"Rory has been key. He and Rhys Bonner, our captain, have been the two catalysts for ball carries for us this year.

"They’ve made yardage upon yardage every time they carry which gives us that front foot ball for our backs to play off.”

Sixth-placed Kirkcaldy, who have 29 points from 15 matches, can take another huge stride towards survival by winning at second-bottom Berwick this Saturday, kick-off 2pm.

"Berwick is a tough place to go,” Sanft said. “But I think the relief that the pressure is off us now from that sort of relegation battle that the boys will play a little bit more free and play more expressive rugby this week, depending on the weather.”