The Anchor club house was buzzing on Saturday night as Paisley RFC, sponsored by Kilty Kilty, celebrated it's first double in a long time. The 1st XV celebrations on hearing the news that the 2nd XV had won over Strathclyde Police 22-5, after their own fine away victory over Birkmyre (5-42), show that the club is genuinely pulling itself together and heading in the right direction.

Once again the weather gods played an important role in helping Paisley secure a fine away victory over Renfrewshire rivals, Birkmyre of Kilmacolm. With the game being played on Birkmyre's exposed top pitch where a strong wind blew downhill, the home side won the toss and elected to start with the wind at their backs. Initially Paisley played into the opposition hands, kicking away possession too easily and being forced deep into their own territory by the massive clearing kicks of Birkmyres impressive full-back. In conditions like these, the only way to play is to keep the ball amongst the forwards and control possesion, which after yet another slow start, finally dawned on the Paisley pack. Having executed a fine line-out catch and drive Paisley thought they'd scored the opeing try of the game, awarded by the referee, only for red faces all round as the realisation that the unusual markings on the home pitch had led both Paisley and the ref to think that the 5m line was the try line. Using common sense, the ref ruled that the try be chopped off and awarded an attacking scrum to Paisley instead. Clearly Birkmyre were still chuckling to themselves over their good fortune as Paisley number 8 Davie Dodds strolled over unopposed from the back of the scrum to open the scoring.

Alas, for Paisley the hard work of the previous ten minutes was clearly forgotten as loose play from the kick off and a dropped pass in the backs resulted in Birkmyre scoring a fine try using their backs to good effect.

The game then endured a dull period where Paisley failed to retain possession for any period as the big Birkyre forwards dominated the scrums, but were strangely unable to pin Paisley down in defence as they kicked poorly for field position. As the game neared half-time though the bigger pack visibly tired and Paisley picked up their game getting some good driving plays going forcing their way into the Birkmyre 22. Steve Jermy kicked a neat penalty after failing with a drop goal attempt and the half ended 5-8 in Paisley's favour.

As the 2nd half started, a clearly tired Birkmyre pack did not look up for the task ahead as the wind strengthened and the sun had lowered into their eyelines. Paisleywere able to turn the screw as they had done in the previous week with fly-half Jermy turning in a man of the match performance nudging the Paisley forwards into good attacking positions constantly and forcing Birkmyre backwards with his experienced boot. Under the relentless pressure, Birkmyre lost their outside centre and a prop forward to injury, but more importantly lost their composure and focussed on bickering with the referee, who had a fine game, rather than on their defensive duties - other than when they were on their own line.

Without any real invention, Paisley were able to muster scores for Inside centre Jonny Murrel, a local Kilmacolm boy, and Fraser Ross at scrum-half, but still struggled to claim the critical 4th try for a bonus point. After much huffing and puffing on the Birkmyre line, coach Jim MacFarlane brought himself on at half-back to play opposite Tony Ham, who had played outside half for Paisley some 15 years earlier when the ageing MacFarlane was but a colt in the Paisley 1st team. It must have  caused Ham and his Birkmyre team mates some embarrasment when the Paisley coach almost managed to reach scampering speed to get over for a 5 pointer.

Further tries for Davie Dodds and Jonny Murrel and a drop goal from Steve Jermy added a nice gloss to the scoreline for Paisley, who had once again benefited from the meteorological conditions.

It speaks highly for the morale of the Anchor outfit that despite maintaining their 100% league record and going top of Regional League West II, the biggest cheer of the day was for the news that the 2nd XV had finally recorded a victory, and a sweet one at that, over Strathclyde Police.