Comeback on way for South of Scotland rugby team as sport’s Scottish inter-district championship is revived

Bruce McNeil, now at Kelso, on the ball for South of Scotland against Caledonia Reds at Stirling's Bridgehaugh Park in 2017 (Photo: Alwyn Johnston)

The South of Scotland rugby team are making a comeback in the spring to compete in the sport’s revived Scottish inter-district championship.

The Scottish Rugby Union this week confirmed the competition is on the way back after almost 20 years in abeyance.

Its comeback was triggered by an amended motion put to the union’s 2021 annual meeting by Tennent’s Premiership side Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians, with 72 clubs voting to revive it and 46 voting against.

The new version of the competition will be contested by four teams, representing the South, Glasgow and West, Caledonia and Edinburgh.

South of Scotland captain Gregor Hunter tackling Caledonia Reds' Liam Brims at Riverside Park in Jedburgh in 2016 (Photo: Stuart Cobley)

The South will host Edinburgh in the first round of the championship and Caledonia will be at home to Glasgow and West.

The winners of those fixtures will play the following week in an inter-district final and the two losers will take part in a third-place play-off.

Dates and venues will be confirmed at a later date.

SRU vice-president Keith Wallace said: “I am delighted to announce this new tournament, which drew strong support from clubs at a previous AGM, together with a lot of enthusiasm from players.”

The players taking part will be picked from teams in the Tennent’s Premiership and all three national leagues, putting representatives of Hawick, Selkirk, Jed-Forest, Kelso, Melrose, Gala and Peebles in contention for selection.

The championship was first staged in 1953, with teams representing the South, Edinburgh, Glasgow, the North and Midlands and, latterly, the Scottish Exiles competing.

It fell by the wayside in 1996 but was revived in 2000 for a further three years, its last winner being Edinburgh.

The South of Scotland won it outright more times than any other district, 17, and were also joint winners on ten occasions.

They last won it in 1994 but a team representing the Borders came out on tops in a version of it in 2002 after a short-lived split into amateur and professional tournaments.

The red-and-white-hooped regional representatives haven’t played at XVs since November 2017, a side captained by Gregor Hunter and with Kevin Barrie as head coach coming back from 19-0 down to beat Caledonia Reds 40-24 at Stirling’s Bridgehaugh Park that time round, but they have continued to compete at sevens, including at Percy Park in North Tyneside last year.

The visitors’ tries were scored by Selkirk back-rower Callum Marshall, Gala’s Graham Speirs, Jed-Forest’s Euan Scott, Hawick’s Lee Armstrong at the double and his team-mate Dalton Redpath, with Hunter adding five conversions.

That match in Stirling – a fundraiser for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, generating £5,165 – was one of only four 15-a-side games played by the South so far this century, the previous one, a 33-7 win, also being against Caledonia Reds, at Jedburgh’s Riverside Park in November 2016, and the others against Northumberland and a Barbarians team.

The South team beat Northumberland 37-3 in Galashiels in December 2009 and the Barbarians 22-15 in Hawick in October 2011.