Published: Thursday, 13th November, 2008 4:25pm

Dunfermline go second with eight-try victory

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Ardrossan 20 Dunfermline 49

DUNFERMLINE moved into joint second place in Premier division 3 with an emphatic eight-try away victory, 49-20 over Ardrossan.

Dogged with injuries and unavailability, Dunfermline were soon a penalty behind after an early infringement but responded quickly with Johnny Bruton benefiting from the strong scrum to dart over for a well-worked try.

A series of tight drives resulted in Rob Hamilton extending his lead as top try scorer for the visitors" second try.

Ardrossan came back into the game when they took advantage of Dunfermline"s defensive disorganisation to score a try.

This stung the visitors into action and from a deep scrum, slick handling saw Scott Swankie link with Grant Fraser, who beat his opposite man and linked with the supporting Warren Daly for a great try.

As half-time approached, the Dunfermline pack continued to dominate and Daly dived over from short range for his second try while Sky Laurie used his pace to beat the despairing home defence.

Dunfermline went into the break 27-3 ahead but in the second half, the home side were more organised and the visitors could only add an Ally O"Connor drop goal.

Some poor Dunfermline tackling gave the home team a lifeline as a converted score brought them within 10 points with some 25 minutes still to play.

However, the visitors took control of the game again as Laurie ran in his second, Fraser collected a sublime cross-field kick from Ross Gribbons to touchdown and Ross Neill added another. O"Connor converted two of the three.

Dunfermline"s next fixture is at home to Irvine on 22nd November with an earlier than usual kick-off of 12.15pm.