Hawick’s Matty Douglas named as head coach for South of Scotland squad contesting May’s inter-district championships

“It’s a massive honour to be given the reins for the South,” said the 27-year-old.

“There are a lot of top-quality coaches in the Borders at the minute.

“At the same time, though, we’ve had a lot of success at Hawick and I’ve actually been coaching now for seven years in senior rugby.

“Even though I’m quite young, I’ve got a bit of experience behind me so I’m confident about taking those sort of roles on now.

“It’s a great honour and something I’m looking forward to once Hawick’s XVs season finishes.

“I think people in the Borders will back us, which is what we need.

“It is a good set of coaches we’ve got involved as well.”

Douglas will be backed up by a coaching team comprising Melrose’s Bert Grigg, Peebles’ Iain Chisholm and Musselburgh’s Andrew Clark, with the Greens’ Gary Muir as team manager and Gala’s Ewen Swinton as operations boss.

Jed-Forest’s Ali Campbell and Selkirk’s Ewen Robbie will be in charge of selection.

The South will play two games in a knockout format, the first being against Edinburgh at Netherdale in Galashiels on Tuesday, May 9, and then either Glasgow or Caledonia in a final or third-place play-off at a venue yet to be confirmed on Sunday, May 21.

Douglas helped out Fraser Harkness with coaching a South sevens side entered for a tournament in North Tyneside in May last year but that’s his only previous involvement with the regional representatives.

“I’ve never had any experience with the South at XVs either playing or coaching so it’s all new to me and I’m looking forward to it,” he said.

Douglas sees the revived inter-district championships as complementary to the semi-professional Super Series competitions rather than a replacement for them, as envisaged by the original Hawick-backed Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians motion to 2021’s Scottish Rugby Union annual general meeting that triggered their return.

“It is a massive thing for players as at the moment there is nothing for those playing in the Tennent’s Premiership or Tennent’s National League Division 1 at the end of their seasons,” he said.

“Super6 has obviously been a big talking point, but for lots of consistent players in the premiership and national leagues not involved in that, there’s nothing, so to have the district championships and club internationals back will make a massive difference to them and give them something to go for.”

It’s not yet known how big a squad will be assembled to pick the South’s starting line-ups from but that looks likely to be determined by selections for the spring and summer’s Kings of the 7s rounds.

“It’s still to be decided,” said Douglas.

“If I’m honest, it’ll be a bit of a challenge due to the sevens, and some teams are still playing in April.

“That’ll be the biggest challenge but I’d like to put together as strong a South squad as possible and there are a lot of top-quality players playing in the premiership and national leagues in the Borders and East Lothian at the minute. We’ll be looking at a decent-sized squad.”

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 beating 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 Shields last year.

That match in Stirling, a fundraiser for the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation, 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.