Two minutes later saw CQP respond with a superb run down the centre by prop David Irvine. Shortly before David reached the GHA line he fed a good pass to scrum half Jonny Campion who was up in support which lead to him going over followed by a Wayne Burrows conversion to give CQP a 7-5 lead.

Next up was a try for GHA which was converted and the lead switched to the visitors.
With twenty eight minutes played GHA increased their lead to 17-7 with an unconverted try followed six minutes later by a CQP try for captain Ewen Campbell who nicked over close to the posts and the score moved to 17-14 to GHA where it stood at half time.

With only three minutes of the second half played the lead changed again when Juan Phyfer went over finishing off some good CQP play and Wayne Burrows converted to move the score to 21-17 to CQP

However CQP's lead was short lived as a through kick by GHA lead to a foot race which their backs won leading to their fourth and bonus point try which went unconverted moving the score to 22-21 in their favour

A penalty to CQP saw the lead change again and with GHA down to fourteen players another successful CQP penalty saw CQP's lead increased to 27-22 with sixty three minutes on the clock.

The game continued at pace and GHA took the lead back when they drove over in the corner following line out close to the CQP line. The try was unconverted but GHA now had a two point 29-27 lead with the clock running down before the finish GHA added a sixth try from close range to move the score to 34-27 which brought this ding dong contest to an end.

Both sides had chances to win this game but over the piece CQP probably made more mistakes than GHA and on the basis that the try count was six tries to three for GHA the visitors deserved their win but it would be a brave man who would put any money on the likely winner of the return match in December.

FINAL SCORE CQP 27 ( 1 point ) GHA 34 (five points )

It is some considerable time since CQP has lost two games in a row but hopefully they can win at Falkirk next week.

Elsewhere most games resulted in narrow wins but Falkirk suffered a heavy away defeat 33-0.

From a spectating point of view the GHA game was an end to end thriller which showed that the pace in National 1 is going to be faster than National 2 and that we will have less time on the ball.

Ball sponsor Lucie Sherlock