Caithness secure victory over Highland 2nd XV in Thurso
The Greens are in danger of becoming the Jekyll and Hyde side of Caley Division 1.
On the back of Saturday's rousing 29-10 despatch of Highland Seconds at Millbank, Cameron Boyd's team would look a good bet to make the end-of-seaon play-offs involving the North and Midlands conferences.
But their fielding of shadow squads on their travels could again prove their undoing. Mr Hyde had again loomed large in their 88-0 drubbing away to Aberdeenshire in their previous outing.
On Saturday, they settled early and established an upper hand that they held throughout. Lock Dave McIntosh and skipper and number eight Cole Wilson were prominent with several early powerful carries.
They opened the scoring midway through the half. Lachlan Jardine and Wilson did the donkeywork before Douglas Webster got on the end of his brother Scott's cut-out pass to cross.
Within five minutes, the home support were celebrating again when prop Mark Nicolson finished off a five metre line-out drive. Gary Mackay added the conversion.
Highland responded near the interval when centre Stuart Irvine seized on a loose ball to run in from the halfway line.
Ross Gibson converted before adding a penalty. The Greens made a furious start to the second half, with replacement lock Kevin Budge almost squeezing over in the left corner.
The pressure paid off when scrum half Euan Macdonald exploited a chink in the visitors' goal-line defence to cross.
Highland struggled to regain a foothold and their defeat was sealed by two close-range tries, a second for Nicolson before Budge bullocked over from Wilson's feed.
Mackay converted the latter, with his team able to comfortably see out the rest of the game despite Budge's yellow card.
Boyd was exuberant to see his troops back up their opening home win over Mackie, especially as they were thrashed 96-28 by Highland in a pre-season friendly in Inverness.
"We had worked hard on our defence in training and I thought it was really good on Saturday," he said. "Our first-up tackling was immense.
"To restrict a decent team like Highland to 10 points was a huge achievement
"If you had offered me a bonus-point win beforehand, I'd have bitten your hand off."
Boyd was happy with how his team retained and distributed the ball.
He added: "I asked them to win the collisions and they did. It was great to see."
Looking to Saturday's match away to Ross Sutherland, Boyd said they could again be without a handful of regulars.
. Elsewhere in the North conference on Saturday, Ross defeated North Police Scotland 53-36 while Aberdeenshire demolished Mackie 90-0 at Stonehaven.
. Caithness Seconds open their Caley North 3 campaign on Saturday away to Turriff.
