Borders sides in rugby’s Tennent’s National League Division 1 looking to keep up winning ways after racking up clean sweep of victories

Gala were Saturday’s biggest winners, beating Glasgow High Kelvinside 59-5 at home to tighten their grip on the top of the table.

Melrose were only a whisker away from matching that 54-point winning margin recorded at Netherdale in Galashiels, beating basement side Aberdeen Grammar 64-11 at home at the Greenyards.

Kelso weren’t far behind away to Stewart’s-Melville either, defeating them 35-12 at Inverleith in Edinburgh.

Those results keep head coach Stuart Johnson’s side one point clear of Kelso in pole position, on 20 points from four games.

Second-placed Kelso have maintained their five-point cushion on third-placed Ayr, 44-10 victors at home to Watsonians on Saturday, and Melrose sit fifth, on 12 points from four matches.

Gala and Melrose are both away this coming Saturday, to sixth-placed Biggar and eighth-placed Dundee respectively, and Kelso host fourth-placed Highland, all those fixtures kicking off at 3pm.

Gala’s try-scorers against GHK were Andrew Mitchell at the double, Glenn McCrum, Lachlan Johnston, captain Liam Scott, Stevie Cairns, Jack Niven twice and Jack Easson, with Scott Peffers converting seven of them. Visiting captain Paul Henderson also got on the scoresheet with an unconverted try.

Touching down for Melrose were Logan Kirk, Donald Crawford at the double, Ruairidh Lindsay, Archie Pilcher twice, Angus Runciman, Elliot Ruthven, Gav Wood and Callum Crookshanks, with Struan Hutchison adding seven sets of extras. Replying for the Aberdonians were Tom Aplin with two penalties and Teifion Osborne with an unconverted try.

Kelso’s try-scorers were captain Frankie Robson, Cammy Brown twice and Bruce McNeil, with Dwain Patterson converting four, plus a penalty try. Euan MacRury and Willie Malcolm got the hosts’ tries, with Mikey Miller converting one.

Johnson was chuffed to see his Maroons keep up their 100% record but believes there is still room for improvement, telling Borders Rugby TV: “There’s always bits we can work on. We need to get better for next week at Biggar away, then we’ve got Kelso at home and Highland away, so we’ve got a massive three weeks coming up.

“We need to be on it next week but we’re going there full of confidence after four bonus-point wins in four games.

“There’s bits we need to work on but we’ll get on the training pitch and put them right for Biggar on Saturday.”

Melrose captain Hutchison was equally happy with his side’s showing, saying: “It was a big scoreline in the end there so we’re really pleased with that.

“It would have been easy to have come out there and dropped off in the second half because we had a large lead at half-time but we just said ‘how ruthless can we be, how accurate can we be?’ and we managed to run in a few more scores.

“We’re back to winning ways and we’re really pleased with that. Five points at home – you can’t beat that.”

Kelso’s Robson added: “I think we played 30 minutes of good rugby in that game but we managed to get the job done. We got there.

“We’re on a couple of wins in a row now so we need to just keep rolling and hopefully we can front up and have a big start against Highland and then take it from there.”