A cold and blustery day welcomed the visitors Newton Stewart to Ardencaple on Saturday.

Flying high with an unbeaten start in the league, the visitors were the unlikely favourites. As the game started the weather became worse and heavy rain fell. Newton Stewart started brightly but were repelled by strong scramble defence from Burgh.

From the clearance line out, Newton Stewart were too slow and gave away a free kick.

The away side pressed again, forcing a penalty within the Burgh half. The kick was missed in poor conditions. Burgh pushed back and when Newton Stewart collapsed a rolling maul, Sterry stepped up to take Burgh into an unlikely 3-0 lead.

Both teams then used their forwards in short hard runs, Farren back in the team tackled well despite the away team’s experienced back row being the pick of the players.

The game flowed back and forth, eventually Burgh gained good position within the Newton Stewart 22. As the ball was passed across the field, Burgh simply ran out of space and were shepherded into touch. Newton Stewart attacked again and made good ground but the lively Burgh defence won turnover ball. Prop Flanagan was clipped by a trailing boot and had to retire for stitches.

Debutant Ashdown stepped into the breach. Newton Stewart attacked again through their big running forwards and were unfortunate to knock on over the line.

A big push from the visitors won back the ball from the scrum and set up their big number six for a try as he battered through the tiring Burgh defence.

The kick was good taking the score at half time to 3-7.

At the start of the second period Newton Stewart were penalised for coming in from the side at a ruck and a confident Sterry stepped up for the kick from half way that fell agonisingly short.

Errors were creeping in from both sides and a Curtis clearance went out on the full giving Stewart valuable territory.

Burgh forced their way back into the opposing half, winning another penalty which again was missed by the usually metronomic Sterry. The visitors responded and returned to the Burgh half and won their own penalty which they converted 3-10.

From the kick-off Burgh won clean ball and a promising attack from the backs was interrupted as Sterry’s offload was intercepted. Harris, not known for his tackling, made a try saving stop.

The attack continued as Newton Stewart closed in on to the Burgh 5m line. From the resulting scrum Greggain was yellow carded for knocking the ball back with his hand.

The tap and go led to a knock on from the visitors but they had enough in the tank to drive Burgh off their own ball for their number eight to score under the posts and make it 3-17.

The Burgh forwards kept the pressure on, winning a penalty in midfield. Unfortunately Sterry’s optimistic kick bounced the wrong side of the corner flag, going dead and gifting possession to Newton Stewart.

They pressed to the Burgh 22 and when given a penalty they opted for the scrum, knowing this was where they had the upper hand. The following try had a sense of inevitability, 3-24 to Newton Stewart.

To Burgh’s credit they did not give up and the backs continued to attack on an individual basis. Lacking any real coherence they still showed great courage and determination.

Forcing their way to the line, Miller, returning to the fray despite an injured wrist, crashed over for the consolation try. Converted by Sterry the score was now 10-24 with minutes to go.

The optimists in the crowd hopes for a late surge were dashed when the impressive away number eight took a tap penalty to brush through a number of tackles to score again.

The final score 10-29 looked bad on paper, but on the pitch there was not much between the teams.