45-12 win against Musselburgh no shock for Kelso

​Even he was surprised to see his side, third from bottom at kick-off, score six tries in the opening 40 minutes to give themselves a 38-0 half-time lead.

Musselburgh put up more of a fight after the break, though they could scarcely have put up less of one, but even then they could only muster 12 points in response to a further seven from their hosts at Poynder Park.

“It didn’t come as a huge shock to us but we didn’t see 38-0 by half-time coming,” said Hinnigan.

“We’ve been getting our squad together and back to full strength. That’s been a problem, but against Jed-Forest the week before, we finally got our strongest team or thereabouts out.

“We felt something like what happened in Saturday’s first half could have happened against Jed, but we missed a lot of chances because we weren’t clinical enough, so we worked on that through the week.

“We wanted to make sure that if we got chances, especially against the likes of Musselburgh as they were flying high, we’d take them, and once we got the first try, it just sort of snowballed from there and every chance we got in the red zone, we took it.

“It was just one of those halves when everything clicked.”

Kelso’s tries were scored by Cammy Brown at the double, Bruce McNeil, captain Frankie Robson, Keith Melbourne, Murray Woodcock and Andy Tait, with five of them converted by Dwain Patterson.

Touching down for Musselburgh – reduced to 14 men by a second-half red card for winger Rory Hindhaugh for a dangerous tackle on Patterson – were Michael Badenhorst and Ross Brown, with Danny Owenson adding a conversion.

Kelso are now seventh in the standings, with 25 points from ten fixtures, and a trip to Edinburgh to take on Heriot’s Blues this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 2pm, offers them an opportunity to leapfrog their hosts, currently sixth, on 27 points.

The reverse fixture in the Borders was a 24-24 draw in September.