HILLFOOTS RFC inflicted the first defeat to Glenrothes over the weekend, seeing off the Fife side by 17 to 12.

The hosts came out the traps very strongly, looking to get early points on the board through Robert Hodge and Ben Clelland, but the ball was spilled in Glenrothes’ twenty-two.

Glenrothes did well on the counter, charging forward to cross the line and earn a conversion – which was successful and gave the visitors an early 7-0 lead.

Foots were spurred on, however, and it wasn’t long before they replied with a try of their own, with strong carries punching holes in Glenrothes’ defence.

Fraser Christie ran a good line before offloading to the supporting Gavin Spowage, then into Kev Aitken and lastly to Rory McNair.

McNair refused to be beaten, shrugging off a tackler before scoring in the right hand corner, Andy Fraser adding the extras to level the game up.

McNair found himself on the scoresheet again in very similar fashion – Danny Cockroft broke away in the middle of the mark and played the ball into Hodge.

The ball found its way back to McNair who bundled over the line, Fraser once again on target to put the hosts ahead again.

Glenrothes had a chance to go into the break ahead but their long-range penalty effort fell short to close the half down.

The visitors suffered an early setback into the second half after they got a player sent off for a high tackle, but Foots could not capitalise straight away as Fraser’s penalty drifted just wide.

He got a second effort not long after, making no mistake and extending Foots lead out to five points.

Glenrothes pushed to try and find a way back into the game, but were unable to pierce a resolute Foots defence, who punted the last ball out to win the game.

Head coach Graeme Simpson said: “The game was what we anticipated it to be.

“Glenrothes were a very, very competitive, and we needed to be at our best to succeed. Other than discipline wobbles towards, the end, I felt we were the better of the two sides throughout.

“The lads deserved the result they earned. We have two weekends off with no matches as we are tasked with preparing for Alloa, another contested that the players and I are awaiting.”

Hillfoots RFC now have a couple weeks off, their next game against local rivals Alloa RFC on October 12 at 3pm.