IRVINE battled bravely – and sometimes foolishly – at Burnbrae but were unable to prevent West of Scotland from going top of BT National 3.

The visitors showed great character to overcome an early deficit, as well as the loss of both centres and full back Lincoln Ormsby to injury, to lead at half-time through Blair Jardine’s penalty and tries by Alistair Maxwell and Ruchin Filander, the latter converted.

But the game slowly but surely slipped from their grasp in the second half as the home side turned up the heat.

The result, combined with defeat for Dumfries at Lasswade, sends West top of the league although Dumfries can regain top spot with victory over Dunfermline in a fortnight.

Irvine drop to eighth as a result of victory for Perthshire over th Fife side.

The hosts began brightly and opened up an 8-0 lead by the end of the first quarter, winger Ross Carnegie scoring in the corner to round off a good spell of possession after centre Blair Smith had opened the scoring with a penalty.

Jardine reduced the arrears to 8-3 shortly afterwards, before the visitors equalised through Maxwell’s try. The hosts were ruled to have carried the ball over their own line from a Michael Kirk kick play and from the resulting scrum Maxwell was able to pick his spot at leisure.

Filander embarked on one of his trademark runs into the West half, only to throw a pass wastefully forward as Irvine once again had their opponents on the ropes. But the substitute atoned for his error just after the half hour when a West knock-on under their own posts gave the tourists excellent field position, and he crossed from the resulting scrum to give Jardine an easy conversion.

Jardine had a chance to extend Irvine’s lead from the kicking tee on the stroke of half-time, but he was unable to land the goal on this occasion.

The hosts were thrown a lifeline 10 minutes into the second half when an Irvine forward was ruled guilty of a stamp while contesting a ball in his own half, and was fortunate to escape a yellow card. West laid siege to the Irvine line and a penalty try looked on the cards, but they finally scored from open play through prop Andy Love.

Crucially, Smith missed the conversion, meaning Irvine still had a two-point lead to defend.

Irvine should have regained the initiative when the hosts knocked the restart on and the visitors enjoyed a patient spell of possession in front of the West posts. They were unable to force their way over, with the home defence in determined mood, and eventually settled for a penalty. Jardine was again wide with his kick however.

Another rush of blood to the head should have cost Irvine on the hour, when try scorer Filander swatted a West pass to the ground, earning himself a yellow card for a deliberate knock-on. Smith’s penalty crashed back off the post before being knocked on by one of his team-mates, and Irvine survived again.

The Irvine lead looked increasingly against the run of play as time went on however, and there was an air of inevitability about the winning scores for West when they finally arrived in the last ten minutes through winger Fintan Cuthbertson and number eight Darren Allan.

Irvine now have a three-week break before entertaining Dunfermline.

Head coach Jim Barrie said afterwards: “It really was a valiant effort from [the] guys, fighting back from the early setback of going eight points down and losing Lincoln and Kevin to injury to take total control of the rest of the first half to lead 15-8 at the interval.

“It could have been a lot more had we been more clinical with our finishing, however the second half did not go our way. Promotion is out of our hands at the moment, but not beyond our capabilities.” IRVINE: L Ormsby; N Murray, N McMillan, K Lang, C Lang; B Jardine, G McGibbon; E Callaghan, M Kirk, D Kirkwood, A Thomson, A Nugent, A Lang, V Meredith, A Maxwell. Replacements: R Jaap, R Filander, T McHarg, J Carson.

For the full story see this week's Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald.