“On days like this, mindset wins the day: you’ve got to scrap for everything, outwork the other team and I thought our boys did that. At 17-7 we had a lot of chances when we went to the corner and it didn’t go our way, and then Heriot’s did really well to get back into the game. They scored a cracking try and it was great to see the boys park it and move on. It was a real gutsy performance, and sometimes you’ve got to find a way to win ugly.”

Previously unbeaten Heriot’s had started the season in free-scoring form and within 90 seconds of kick-off, a dynamic midfield break from former pupil of George Heriot’s School, Cammy Hutchison made it look like the visitors would be first trouble the scoreboard operator, only for full-back Ross Jones to knock on as the visitors tried to take advantage of numbers on the right.

Bulls started to gain a bit of a foothold, and after colliding with referee Keith Allan when coming in off his wing for a set-piece play, Elias Caven was given another bite at the cherry which he sunk his teeth into. With the Bulls’ scrum starting to wheel, scrum-half Cam Jones went down the blindside, dropped the ball onto his toes and weighted an inch-perfect grubber kick which Caven beat Sam Pecqueur and the covering Bruce Houston to in the race to dot down.

Heriot’s struck back almost instantly, Blair Macpherson spilling the restart to hand Heriot’s the scrum put-in from which they won a penalty which went to the corner, openside Iain Wilson claimed the throw, No 8 Jason Hill bashed at the line, and blindside flanker Jack Mann got in to the breakdown first to pick and cross for a back-row union score.

Houston converted to nudge Heriot’s ahead, however, almost as quickly as they had fallen behind, Bulls retook the lead. With players such as Edward Bloodworth, Rory Jackson and the giant Alex Samuel among their line-out options, Grant Stewart had a fairly easy afternoon with the darts, and after he hit Samuel about 10 metres from the line, it was fellow Glasgow Warrior front-row Tom Lambert in possession when the maul crossed.

A tidy score involving the backs was then finished by Aaron Tait with just half an hour played, at which point you might expect Bulls to burst clear as they so often do at home, but Heriot’s were not going away and should have been within try-scoring distance on the scoreboard when Hutchison cross-kicked to lock Jamie Campbell who had found himself out on the left-wing, and although Ruairidh Leishman released Freddie Owsley, Stewart somehow managed to dislodge the ball from the Edinburgh winger’s grasp with the try-line beckoning.

A dink from Houston, which saw both Pecqueur and Hutchison slide through one of the advertising board as they desperately tried to touch down, brought the first half to a close.