Dun­dee Rugby’s Arnold Clark National One cam­paign got off to a tough start on Sat­urday with a 52-19 defeat at Glas­gow Accies, the vis­it­ors play­ing 65 minutes a man down after a red card.

With 15 minutes gone at New Annies­land, Dun­dee were reduced to 14 when skip­per Sean Gauld was alleged to have made shoulder to head con­tact and was given his march­ing orders by the ref­eree after talks with his assist­ant ref­eree.

That threw Dun­dee’s game plan out of the win­dow and, although they scrambled to try to read­just, they found them­selves 35-0 down at the inter­val.

To their credit, the May­field men did not let their heads go down and, indeed, “won” the second period, which shows the spirit they have and spirit they will hope to build on in the com­ing weeks.

Head coach Alan Clark said: “A lot of our guys were exper­i­en­cing National One rugby for the first time so were a bit over­awed in the first half.

“Whenever you have a player sent off it is tough, espe­cially when it hap­pens so early.

“In the second half we battled really hard to make our mark with 14 men.

“The mes­sage from us as coaches was to get into the fight and take something from the game.

“The boys came back with a great response and we were pleased that the second half was 19-17 to us.”

Perth­shire, look­ing to bounce straight back from releg­a­tion, were impress­ive in the same Cale­do­nia One Mid­lands Con­fer­ence sec­tion on Sat­urday, com­ing out on top 62-7 at Dun­dee Rugby seconds.

A pen­alty by Calum Bruce made it 3-0 before a con­ver­ted try by Aidan Wat­son exten­ded that advant­age to 10-0.

Two tries then came from Aedan Milne and with Bruce’s good day with the boot con­tinu­ing it was 24-0.

Dun­dee tried to get into things, but then, just before half-time, Ollie Mar­tins Da Silva executed a bril­liantly read inter­cep­tion and he raced clear to score a con­ver­ted try to make it 31-0 at the inter­val.

Rhys Dar­ling­ton Milne, who was com­plet­ing his hat-trick, Rory Bain and Simon Mcgarry scored with Bruce adding some extras and it was 57-0.

Dun­dee then scored a con­ver­ted try, but the dom­in­ant vis­it­ors had the last word when Mar­tins Da Silva fin­ished off a slick passing sequence to go over for a try to fin­ish it at 62-7.