Haddington' ground is quite distinctive in that there is a great deal of space to the left of the pitch as one looks to the clubhouse and additionally the pitch itself is crowned from centre to side. This must give the local team a kicking advantage as the home stand off will know his own ground whereas the visiting stand off will not. To explain further when you stand on one side it is impossible to discern where the far side touchline is.

Once again CQP were forced to ring the changes because of injury and unavailability. The following changes were made in the side from the previous week. In Burrows, Goudie Gilmour and Stewart. Out Davidson, Black and Noble

Up front Michael Pllich , Chris Docherty Lamont and Hamilton came in for Cook, Burke Hollier and Dickson

The consequence was that a number of players had to play outside of their normal positions and this did show up occasionally in the game in relation to ball gathering and positioning.

A fresh wind was behind CQP's back in the first have and they started very briskly gaining a penalty after only five minutes when Haddington went offside in the ruck. Unfortunately the kick was missed by Wayne Burrows.

This was followed by some good driving play and a good run by Michael Pllich

CQP opened the scoring when Steven Murray got over from close range and Wayne converted to give CQP a 7-0 lead.

CQP continued to press and were clearly on top but on a number of occasions the choice was made to kick through when support players were on the outside waiting for the pass and also the carrier on occasion chose to try and break the tackle when outside support was on hand.

With seventeen minutes on the clock CQP increased their lead to ten points from a successful penalty by Burrows in front of the posts.

After twenty-two minutes nearly got on the board when a Haddington penalty missed but was almost taken by a sharp eyed Haddington player following up the kick.

Five minutes later saw the CQP score move to 13 points when Haddington were penalised for preventing release.

With half an hour on the clock Andy Scott made a very good break which culminated in the Haddington number three being binned Only two minutes later saw him joined by their number 4.

At this stage Chris Docherty came on for Michael Nellaney and Andy Lamont came on for Robert Harvey. CQP continued to press but Haddington put up a resolute defence on their five metre line.

Andy Noble who had scored a first class try at Kirkcaldy two weeks before then showed great composure to score CQP's second try. On this occasion he followed up a very good downfield kick from Wayne Burrows kicked the ball on keeping it about a metre inside the touchline and then kicked on again when the Haddington defender tried to gather the ball. He the gathered the ball in hand and went as far towards the posts as he could to give Wayne Burrows an easier opportunity to convert which hew took to put CQP into a twenty point lead with half-time approaching

A haddington attack just on half-time saw an attempted clearance by a CQP forward charged down and Haddington number six Barber got over for a try which went unconverted to take the score at half-time to 20-5 to CQP.

With the restart came the expected fightback by Haddington and CQP conceded some penalties which saw the ref yellow card Andy Noble for his first offence  after five minutes of play..This seemed somewhat harsh but the ref explained later that he wished to make it clear that foul play would be penalised and if you like Andy Noble was simply the man to be pinged.

Only a minute later Haddington scored their second try from a ruck. The try was converted to move the score to 20-12 to CQP.  

Ten minutes later Haddington reduced their deficit to five points from a penalty.

By this time it seemed that the wind had picked up. With twenty six minutes played there was a long delay after Steven Murray suffered a back injury which saw him being stretchered off. Later the CQP physio eased CQP concerns by indicating that the injury was not as bad as first appeared.

Soon after this Gregg Gilmour made a fine break down the left side.

The game was now clearly in the balance and the next score would be vital.

CQP pressed hard down the right side but conceded a penalty for failure to release when only five metres from the Haddington line.

Haddington then got themselves down the park but Scott McInnes relieved the pressure with a good clearance kick.

This was followed by the Haddington number 18 being sin binned and shortly afterwards the CQP pack managed to maul the ball over the Haddingon line for their third try to give themselves breathing space. As the game entered injury time Haddington showed their character by continuing to press for another score but CQP kept them from crossing their line but could do nothing to prevent them scoring a drop goal which gave the home side a losing bonus 

Four yellow cards might suggest the game was dirty but it wasn't really just highly competitive. Wins at Haddington are not easily come by and given the patchwork nature of the CQP team this one was well earned and deserved.

Players not mentioned above who made a major contribution to this win were captain Graham Williamson, Ross Gillies and Tony Nyangweso. 

Full-time Haddington 18 Cartha Queen's Park 25  

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