IRVINE battled to their first win in six games against RHC at Marress on Saturday.

The hosts had not won since defeating Hawick YM on 25 October, but can now look ahead to the new year – which they open with banana skin fixtures away to Dalziel and at home to East Kilbride – with renewed confidence.

The visitors dominated the opening exchanges but were unable to capitalise, with fly-half Euan Morrison particularly guilty after missing a penalty from in front of the posts.

Irvine punished their profligacy just before the quarter hour with a try on their first possession. Blair Jardine did the initial damage with a buccaneering run into the RHC half, before playing in the supporting Alistair Maxwell.

The flanker was tackled just short but Jardine followed up on the next phase to crash over in the corner.

Lincoln Ormsby missed the conversion, as well as a 21st-minute penalty from a similar position, but made no mistake in adding the conversion to Irvine’s second try four minutes later.

The chance looked to have gone when in quick succession. David Kirkwood was tackled within feet of the RHC line, and captain Michael Kirk knocked on when looking set to score on the left. But the home forwards turned the ball over at the resulting scrum, and Ruchin Filander applied the finish.

RHC came back into the game and finally got on the board two minutes before half-time, when centre Paul Suiter scored on the right to crown a good spell of possession in the Irvine 22.

Morrison missed the conversion to leave the score at 12-5, and also missed a further penalty in injury time that would have given the hosts something to think about during the interval.

The visitors began the second half as they had the first, only this time they did convert their pressure into points. They were awarded the latest in a succession of penalties when Filander was ruled to have deliberately knocked on, which they took quickly, and hooker Ross Thomson left the home defence with no chance.

Morrison’s conversion squared the match at 12-12, but the visitors were only level for a matter of minutes as the hosts forced a penalty at the kick-off reception, which Ormsby duly goaled to edge the home side back in front after 50 minutes.

This gave Irvine renewed impetus, and they extended their lead just after the hour.

Kevin Lang’s enterprising run set up a good attacking position from which he looked set to score his 11th try of the season, only to be ruled held up.

RHC then looked to have got out of jail when the visiting forwards turned the scrum, but the Irvine pack know a few tricks of their own and managed to force a penalty from the next scrum – and from the resulting possession the ball was worked wide to joint man-of-the-match Neil McMillan, who crossed on the right.

Ormsby, who had struggled with kicks from that side all afternoon, was again unable to add the conversion – but Irvine already had a psychologically important lead of more than a converted try going into the final quarter hour.

The visitors threw the kitchen sink at Irvine in the closing stages, but aside from one kick play on the right where the ball eluded everybody, the home defence were equal to the task and by the time RHC eventually scored – through lock Fraser Thomson after Morrison had missed a kick at goal for the losing bonus point – it was too late to affect the result.

IRVINE – K Matheson; N McMillan, L Ormsby, K Lang, C Lang; B Jardine, K Hobson; C Mackie, D Kirkwood, T Turner, A Nugent, T McHarg, M Kirk, A Maxwell, R Filander. Replacements: E Callaghan, V Meredith, N Murray, G McGibbon.