Kirkcaldy Rugby Club: Relief as Blues seal survival with win at Hamilton Bulls

Quintan Sanft’s sixth-placed team have moved onto 57 points with two fixtures remaining, meaning rivals Berwick (seventh on 50 points with one game to play) and Preston Lodge (eighth on 48 points with one fixture left) will fight it out to avoid the fifth bottom position which will result in one of them being relegated along with Dumfries Saints, Boroughmuir, Cartha Queen’s Park and the aforementioned Bulls.

The Blues got off to a fast start with early tries by captain Rhys Bonner and Kieran Mitchell – both of which were converted by Fin Smith – giving them a 14-0 advantage.

Bonner’s score came one day after he was named in the Caledonian Reds squad for an inter-district championship semi-final against a Glasgow and the West side at Canal Park, Inverness, on Saturday, May 13, with the winners playing either The South or Edinburgh in the final on Sunday, May 21, venue to be confirmed.

But Hamilton then belied their lowly league position by scoring two tries – the first of which was converted – to pull it back to 14-12 by half-time.

And the Bulls then stunned their visitors by taking a 15-14 lead with a penalty early in the second half.

But Dayle Turner then scored Kirkcaldy’s crucial third try, with Smith adding the extras, to put the away team 21-15 in front.

Bonner and an opposition player were then red carded after a fight broke out, with Bulls adding another try before late drama when the conversion attempt was missed to guarantee that Kirkcaldy were staying up.

Kirkcaldy director of rugby development Grant Letham told the Fife Free Press: “Hamilton went for it. They’re relegated so they had nothing to lose.

"They didn’t really play with very much structure. They just ran everything at us so it was a challenging afternoon for the guys.

"It got a bit fesity at one point. There was a bit of fighting and two guys got the red card.

"But overall it was a pretty poor game of rugby to be brutally honest with you.

"Neither side really excelled or did anything particularly well. It was error strewn, an end of season game.

"It could have gone either way. It could easily have been won by them and we could have extended our lead as well because it was such an open game.

"We’ll start preparing for next year now, which is going to be a big challenge.

"Whilst we are staying in the same league, there’s teams coming down from above who aren’t above us because they’re lucky, they’re above us because they’re good sides.

"So we are not going to be going into that league thinking we can run away with it next year. It will be quite interesting to see how it goes.

"All the teams in the league are going to be competitive and good next year.

"I don’t think we fear anybody particularly but likewise we won’t be saying: ‘Oh, they’ll be easy, they are gimme points’.”

Kirkcaldy’s penultimate league match of the season this Saturday sees them visit Peebles for a 2pm kick-off.