First United Rugby Championship starts for Hawick’s Hector Patterson and Jack Oliver

The two scrum-halves, both sons of former Hawick and Scotland No 9s, were handed starting places respectively for Edinburgh’s 31-30 victory hosting Zebre Parma at the capital’s Hive Stadium last Friday and Glasgow Warriors’ 54-12 defeat away to Johannesburg’s Lions in South Africa the day after.

Patterson, 21, played for 68 minutes of his professional debut for head coach Sean Everitt’s side, scoring a try 18 minutes in, before making way for Ben Vellacott and Oliver, 22, was on for 45 minutes on Saturday, his sixth appearance for Franco Smith’s Warriors but first start, prior to being replaced by ex-Southern Knight Ben Afshar.

Both were one of two Borderers in their starting line-ups and three in their match-day squads, Patterson being accompanied by Hawick’s Darcy Graham on the right wing and Oliver by another ex-Green, Rory Sutherland, at loosehead prop, with Jedburgh’s Glen Young and Melrose’s Dylan Cockburn on their respective benches, the former, 31, taking over from lock Marshall Sykes on 74 minutes and the latter, 20, from Sione Vailanu at openside flanker on 65 for his second Warriors appearance.

Graham, 28, played for all 80 minutes of his 95th game for Edinburgh and Sutherland, 33, was on for 45 minutes of his 23rd outing for the Glaswegians before trading places with Nathan McBeth.

Grant Gilchrist-skippered Edinburgh’s other try-scorers against the bottom-of-the-table Italians in front of a crowd of 6,818 were No 8 Connor Boyle, hooker Ewan Ashman at the double and substitute Boan Venter, with fly-half Ross Thompson adding two conversions and replacement Cammy Scott another.

Touching down for Warriors against fourth-placed Lions were Dan Lancaster and captain and inside-centre Stafford McDowall, with fly-half Lancaster also kicking a conversion.

Those 15th-round results leave Warriors four points clear of Cape Town’s Stormers at the top of the championship table, on 55 points, and Edinburgh 12th on 28.

South African Everitt, 56, was pleased with the first impression made by former Scotland under-20 international Patterson, saying: “It was a bit of a dream debut for Hector.

“I thought he went really well. The more games he plays the better he’s going to get, and I thought tonight, particularly with the wind, he was exceptional with his box-kicking.

“I’m really proud of him and happy for him. He can be very proud of his performance, and as long as he keeps working on his game, he’s in control of where he can be, which will probably be at international level.

“Hector, unfortunately, over the last couple of years since I’ve been here, hasn’t played much rugby due to injury, but he’s got through a couple of months now of training exceptionally well.

“He has performed well at training and we just feel that he could be something for the future for Scotland.

“Hector is obviously a dangerous nine. He’s a running nine and he links well with the outside backs when there’s an opportunity on a line-break.

“We’ve seen some really good tries that he’s scored for Scotland under-20s as well, so hopefully he can show that same form for us.”

The Edinburgh debutant’s dad is Derrick Patterson, 57, fielded twice by Scotland in 1994 and 1995, and his Scotstoun Stadium opposite number’s was the late Greig Oliver, capped three times between 1987 and 1991.

Edinburgh’s next game is at home to Durban’s Sharks this Friday and Warriors’ is away to Stormers a day later, with kick-offs at 7.45pm and 12.45pm respectively.