Falkirk crowned National League Cup champions after Lasswade victory at Murrayfield

The Sunnyside outfit travelled to the capital on the back of edging past Newton Stewart in the semi-finals, and they certainly didn’t have it all their own way at the national stadium despite having a man advantage for an hour.

Falkirk got the scoring underway through Connor Faulds’ try, with brother Glen adding the extras, but they were quickly pegged back.

And they actually went in at the break two points down despite Steven Hunter’s ordering off, with Gregor Brodie’s try keeping them in touching distance.

The Midlothian side notched themselves into a 21-12 lead early into the second half and it looked like the tie could be slipping away from Falkirk.

But they finally showed just how well they can play on their day, with Connor, Glen, Stefan Yarrow and captain Harry Russell adding tries as they eventually sealed a 34-21 victory.

Falkirk now round off their National League Division 2 campaign this Saturday coming with a local derby against Stirling County.

A win in that one will see them seal second spot in the league, but once again they’ll be left frustrated that they’ve missed out on promotion again this season – although a national cup triumph certainly softens the blow.

“We’ll enjoy tonight but the season isn’t over yet,” Russell told The Offside Line. “We’ve got one last league game to play against Stirling – so a local derby – next Saturday.

"If we win that then we’ll finish second in National 2, so no promotion this year, which is the second time on the bounce we have been in the mix but not quite made it.

“We’ve had a great season and a lot of younger guys have stepped up so I couldn’t be prouder of them, and we’ll work hard over the summer to prepare for next season looking to build on this cup run and go one step further in the league by finally making it into National 1."

On the Murrayfield victory, the scrum-half, brother of Scotland star Finn, added: “I can’t give enough credit to Lasswade for their whole match performance, and the first half in particular when they were almost certainly the better team.

“Even after they went down to 14, they made more line-breaks than us, they retained the ball better than us, their set-piece was great, and they all just worked for each other, so it was really tough against them.

“From our perspective, it felt a bit edgy for a while, but we were confident that if we stuck to our processes and played our brand of rugby then we would get opportunities, and that showed in the last 15-20 minutes when we scored a couple of tries and made it difficult for them to get back into it.”