Full line-up for 2025’s Melrose Sevens now confirmed

The last two invitational outfits taking part have now been announced, France’s Vannes and Worcester Storm, the former being the first team from France to take part since Seventise in 2022.

Brittany’s Vannes, currently propping up their country’s Top 14 table, have been home to former Melrose, Edinburgh and Scotland under-20 flanker Rudi Brown since summer 2023 and his old club are hoping the 21-year-old will be in the squad they send over in May.

“Our connection with Vannes is through our very own Rudi Brown, who lit up the youth set-up at Melrose in recent seasons, and we hope to see Rudi entertain us once more,” said a spokesperson for the Greenyards outfit.

Worcester, home to Hawick’s Rory Sutherland from 2021 to 2022 in their former professional incarnation as Worcester Warriors, are sixth in England’s seventh-tier Counties 1 Midlands West (South) League at the moment.

Those last two teams to be confirmed are among six sets of guests lined up to contest 2025’s 1883 Centenary Cup on Saturday, May 24, with the others including Shogun, back to defend the title they won for the first time in 2024 with a 21-5 victory in last April’s final against Melrose co-head coach Scott Wight’s South of Scotland Barbarians.

Shogun, coached that time round by Selkirk’s Fraser Harkness and Welshman Nick Wakley, are to be joined by Australia’s Sydney Cavaliers, New Zealand club Te Awamutu and the Co-optimists.

Those half-dozen invitational outfits will be up against 18 Scottish teams.

They include all seven Borders sides taking part in the current Kings of the 7s competition – the Arnold Clark Premiership’s Melrose, Selkirk, Kelso and Hawick and the next division down’s Gala, Peebles and Jed-Forest – and they’re accompanied by the two capital sides on the contest’s leaderboard two rounds in, Edinburgh Academical and Watsonians, plus eight other Scottish-based clubs and expatriate outfit London Scottish, three-time winners of the tournament, most recently in 2019.

The other Scottish clubs heading to the Greenyards are the premiership’s Ayr, Heriot’s, Currie Chieftains and Arnold Clark National League Division 1’s Glasgow Hawks, Glasgow Academicals, Stirling County and Boroughmuir, along with National 2’s Stewart’s Melville.

This year’s Greenyards sevens have been pushed back in the calendar from their traditional second-Saturday-in-April slot, the 12th next time round, by six weeks to avoid any potential fixture clashes if the current premiership season overruns its scheduled March finishing date.

Melrose’s sevens will be the last of the Kings of the 7’s ten rounds this time round, rather than the third, as was the case hitherto.

The Greenyards club themselves are currently at the top of the leaderboard, on 13 points from two rounds, with Jed-Forest, Gala and Edinburgh Accies joint second on ten and Hawick, Peebles and Kelso joint fifth on eight.

Hawick Sevens on Saturday, April 19, will now be the competition’s first round of this year and third all told.

Watsonians were the last Scottish-based team to win Melrose’s sevens, back in 2018, and the hosts were the last Borderers to do so, seven years prior.

Tickets cost from £37 for adults and £17 for children aged 11 to 17. For details, go to https://melrose7s.co.uk/tickets/