On a cold but sunny day, the visitors kicked off, and within a couple of minutes had drawn first blood through a penalty from left wing Alan Armstrong. Their advantage was short lived, however, with Scottish taking the lead immediately from the restart, after inside centre Ian McInroy sent a kick over the Blaydon defence, Damant managing to get to the loose ball first to touch down for the score.

Then, on the quarter hour, Broughton charged through a gap in the Blaydon defence to claim his 50th try for Scottish, and full back Frankie Neale, who had missed with his earlier conversion attempt, this time put the ball through the uprights to make it 12-3 to the hosts.

Blaydon then put the Scottish line under pressure, but faced with some spirited defending, were unable to find a way through. An attempted drop goal from fly-half Elliott O’Brien was low and off target, allowing the home side to clear their lines. However, their respite was only temporary as, following a Blaydon throw, outside centre James Fitzpatrick tore through the Scottish defence for a try, Armstrong adding the conversion to reduce the gap to two points.

Although Scottish were struggling to get out of their half, a quick piece of thinking from Simon Amor, playing at fly-half with Callum Grant taking over scrum-half duties, led to Broughton’s second try of the afternoon, a tap penalty catching Blaydon unawares and the winger finishing off a flowing move. Neale’s conversion made it 19-10 to Scottish.

Shortly before half time, Damant clinched the bonus point after capitalising on confusion in the Blaydon ranks caused by two of their players going up together to gather a kick from Grant, the centre intercepting and running unimpeded to the line to put Scottish into the interval 24-10 ahead.

The home side started the second half brightly, Broughton almost claiming his hat-trick, although the ball was smothered as he tried to kick through to the line, and Blaydon managed to clear their lines and started to put Scottish under pressure. Despite O’Brien missing a penalty, the visitors got their reward on 55 minutes when the ball broke loose as their forwards sought a pushover try, winger Simon Barber getting the vital touch in the left hand corner to take his side within nine points of the hosts.

Shortly after the hour mark, however, a fine try from Neale, jinking his way through the Blaydon defence, saw Scottish extend their lead, the full back converting to make it 31-15. But still Blaydon refused to buckle and within moments Neale’s opposite number, Adam Dehaty, had latched onto a move to cross over in the corner.

Scottish instantly restored their advantage, however, following a ruck on the visitors’ line from which Grant’s pass found Amor running through on the blind side to gather and score, although Neale’s conversion attempt from the touchline went wide.

That was the full back’s last contribution to his match, but within seconds of coming on, his replacement, Stuart Peel, had run in the seventh Scottish try of the afternoon following a lightning-quick move down the left.

The closing minutes saw Blaydon reduced to 14 men after scrum half Tom Rock was sin-binned, and Scottish took advantage with Ian McInroy crossing over to score as the visitors’ defence cracked under the strain, leaving the final score 46-10.

Next week, Scottish make the short trip across South London to visit Blackheath, in a match originally due to have been played before Christmas but postponed due to frost.