Gala 30

Heriot's Blues 32

Bob Sneddon

at Netherdale

GALA couldn't quite manage to repeat the previous week's victory over Heriot's.

And it was the Edinburgh side who progressed to the Scottish Cup semi-finals despite a dramatic late fight-back by the Maroons.

There were changes to the previous week's line-ups with Gala captain Euan Dods missing through a foot injury, and Heriot's bringing back winger Craig Robertson and full back Charlie Simpson.

It was the visitors who struck first with a third minute penalty kicked to touch.

From the resultant line out the ball was fed to Robertson for the opening try.

Just three minutes later Ross Cooke narrowed the gap with a 40 metre penalty.

But the visitors were quickly back on the front foot.

From a five metre scrum, Richard Winton fed the ball to Robertson for his second score of the afternoon.

It was another penalty from Cooke that brought the score to 6-10 approaching the half hour.

And Cooke was involved again for Gala as they took the lead a short time later, collecting a defensive kick deep in his own half to launch a counter attack.

With the ball fed along the line winger Andrew Mitchell broke two tackles to cross the line and score under the posts.

Cooke converted for a 13-10 lead.

But there was still time for the Blues to respond before half time.

In the fifth minute of injury time the ball was passed to Louis Meynier to score out wide.

The cup tie had been as close as the 13-15 half time score would suggest.

And a similar to-and-fro game continued after the interval.

Gala were first to strike in the second half with Josh Irvine picking up at the rear of the scrum to touch down down.

Cooke made it 20-15 with the conversion.

Inevitably it was Heriot's who were next to score.

Following sustained pressure on the Gala line prop Ross Hutchison barged over.

Graham Wilson's conversion gave the visitors a two-point advantage.

The crucial score came in the 63rd minute as another penalty kicked to touch allowed a driving maul to progress enough for another push-over try.

Wilson gave Heriot's a 20-29 lead with only around quarter-of-an-hour remaining.

The teams swapped penalties as the clock ticked down.

And despite plenty of late pressure from the hosts they had to settle for an injury time converted try.

It's now back to league business for Gala with Stirling the opponents this weekend at Netherdale.