Hawick head coach Matty Douglas relishing prospect of taking charge of South of Scotland again for 2024 Scottish inter-district rugby championship

​Douglas led the regional team to the final of the revived championship last time round but lost out 32-30 to Caledonia Reds in Glasgow in May, ending a winning streak dating back over 20 years.

That was the first inter-district championship since 2002 but the red-and-white hooped regional representatives played four one-off fixtures in the interim in 2009, 2011, 2016 and 2017, winning all of them.

May’s final defeat, by the tightest of margins, was the South’s first since 2001 and Douglas is now setting his sights on getting them back to winning ways, describing that aim as unfinished business.

“I jumped at the opportunity again,” he told Borders Rugby TV.

“I was never involved as a player but to be involved as a coach was an amazing experience.

“I loved the environment. I loved working with the other coaches and also the players.

“I jumped at the opportunity of another chance.

“It’s probably a bit of unfinished business.

“I was gutted that we didn’t manage to win the inter-district trophy and I know the players were too.

“To coach again is a great opportunity and I’m obviously thankful to the working group that are allowing me to take it on again.”

This year’s squad featured players from Musselburgh but 2024’s will be Borders-only, the East Lothian outfit’s allegiances having been switched to Edinburgh.

That means there’s no place in Douglas’s coaching team for Andrew Clark this time round and Bert Grigg, formerly head coach at Melrose, is also out.

Current Melrose head coach Iain Chisholm carries on, however, and he’s joined by two new faces, Selkirk head coach Gordon Henderson, alias Sesh, and Kelso player-coach Bruce McNeil.

Douglas isn’t ruling out deploying McNeil as a player again either despite the fact the former Hawick captain will turn 41 the month after the competition.

“He’s obviously still got that bug to play and if he continues to play well, we’ll look at him as a player,” he said.

“Either way, he will coach in some way alongside Sesh with the forwards team and Iain will continue to take on the backs.

“The balance of him playing and coaching might actually work really well. I know it works at Kelso.

“He’s really wanting to give coaching a crack with the South and credit to him, he’s helped lead Kelso up into the premiership and they’ve started the season really well.”

Douglas added: “We’ve got a lot of youth in there but a bit of experience as well. It’s an exciting coaching team.”

“It’s a great team to be involved in.”

A change of format next time round will see all four teams – Glasgow and the West, as well as the South, Edinburgh and Caledonia – play each other, giving the Borderers one extra run-out as they target winning their first title for 22 years and 18th overall.

They’ll play Edinburgh away on March 23, Glasgow at home on March 30 and Caledonia away on April 6, all Saturdays, with venues to be confirmed at a later date.

Douglas is pleased to see the scope of the contest being widened, saying: “It is great now to be able to play everybody. I did feel it was a bit rushed last season in terms of the turnaround.”

The South won their only other game of this year’s championship by 50-17 against Edinburgh in Galashiels in April.

Prior to that, since the previous championship, they’d beaten Reds 40-24 in Stirling in 2017 and 33-7 in Jedburgh in 2016, the Barbarians 22-15 in Hawick in 2011 and Northumberland 37-3 in Galashiels in 2009.