PRESTON Lodge Rugby Club made East Lothian history on Saturday by becoming the first county side to win the RBS Shield, after their 27-6 win over Caithness RFC on Finals Day at Broadwood Stadium in Cumbernauld.

Backed by a raucous crowd as four bus loads made their way from Prestonpans, plus many more individually, PL proved too strong for the side from the far north-east of Scotland as they added the Shield to their East League 1 title and Edinburgh Regional Shield win.

PL, who have won every match they have played this season, fell behind to an early penalty but it would be the only time they were behind during a game in which they scored four tries and ran out deserved winners.

Mark Steedman, head coach, told Courier Sport after the match: “Being a lot of young boys out there as well, it means a lot. The average age is 23.

“They just work hard for it and that’s us gone unbeaten all season. It was just another game but we are absolutely over the moon.

“We really deserved it. I thought we controlled the game quite a bit in different stages. It was a bit of a stop-start game.” He added: “There wasn’t an awful lot of difference, we seemed to be a bit more organised around about multi-phase rugby.

“In the first half we took care of our ball on the ground a bit better; in the second half I wasn’t too chuffed with our clearance but we got better towards the end, our work on the ground got a wee bit better.” With Murrayfield’s pitch being relaid, Broadwood Stadium’s artificial surface threw up an added hurdle for both sides, with PL making adjustments to their game plan.

“It is a hard surface, we only trained on it for an hour during the week,” said Steedman.

“The ball bounces differently. We usually kick the ball a lot more but we weren’t 100 per cent sure how the ball was going to bounce. We made sure we didn’t kick the ball as much in our exits.

“We got a couple of scores from offloading out of the tackle. We got to train on [the artificial pitch at] Murrayfield for an hour and a half and we couldn’t get through enough work in that time but we offloaded a lot more in that game than we did all season.” PL’s star man was Paul Voy, who was voted as man of the match, with the No. 8 scoring the game’s third try.

“It is superb,” he told Courier Sport. “I was confident with the boys we have got, the team spirit is superb, plus we are undefeated the whole season.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game. We didn’t underestimate them and stuck in.” He added: “They had a solid defence but I think we were just stronger in attack. I think they kicked a bit of ball away that they shouldn’t have.” Lifting the Shield aloft was captain and lock Blair Cowan, who has been at the club for 11 years.

“I’ve been looking forward to it for such a long time now,” he told Courier Sport. “It exceeded our expectations, the boys have done fantastic.

“It has been a long time coming; it’s not the first trophy we have lifted this season but it is probably the best one. We kind of stretched away in the league and it was inevitable we were going to win that.

“Caithness were an unknown quaintly coming into the match so we knew we would have to be at the top of our game to win. We stuck to the game plan pretty well.

“I thought they were really good, they had a good pack and defended really well. I just thought our guys were absolutely brilliant on the day. We had a lot of young guys out there who have been at the club for a long time and they rose to the occasion.” Now the club have the chance of completing a quadruple with an East Lothian Cup Final encounter with North Berwick tomorrow (Saturday).

“You get one done and then there’s another one,” said Steedman. “North Berwick, I take my hats off to them, they’ve got youth on their side!

“They’ve got so many dual-registered players that they’ll be able to bring back in as well. It will just be another one we’ll need to be focused on.” Turn to page 54 and 55 for more on the match.