Head coach Alan Tait heartened by second win of Fosroc Super Series Championship rugby season for Southern Knights

​Saturday’s 27-19 victory, following on from edging out the Fosroc Future XV 39-38 on the opening day of the current campaign at the end of July, takes the Borderers’ points tally to 12 from five fixtures and lifts them up to fifth place in the table.

Next up, however, is a trip to Heriot’s this Saturday, with kick-off at 5pm, and their hosts go into that game second in the standings, on 20 points from five rounds, after beating fellow Edinburgh outfit Watsonians 64-0 away last Friday.

Knights’ try-scorers at Melrose’s Greenyards were second-row Allan Ferrie, winger Aidan Cross, loosehead prop Craig Greer and replacement Luke Thompson, with centre Callum Grieve adding two conversions and a penalty.

On the scoresheet for head coach Eddie Pollock’s Wolves were hooker Gregor Hiddleston, back-row Connor Gordon and full-back Glenn Bryce with tries, two of them converted by captain Marcus Holden.

Kelso legend Tait said Saturday’s win had come as a bit of a surprise but a pleasant one, telling us: “I didn’t expect that at all with all the dramas we’d had through the week with injuries and suspensions getting dished out, so it was a great turn-up for the books.

“I’d thought Stirling would be just too strong for us, but the boys did really well.”

The 59-year-old was also pleased by the way his side handled Wolves’ second-half fightback, taking them from 19-0 down at the interval to within five points of their hosts, to see out the match, saying: “Every team are going to have their moments within games and we knew Stirling were going to come at us.

“We couldn’t afford to relax at 19-0 up. I’ve seen us give up that sort of lead before at the Greenyards and our opposition have come back to pip us to the post.

“I told the players to keep focused and keep doing what they’d been doing as Wolves were always going to have a spell and they did.

“They certainly came back out with a reaction and it was looking like they were getting into their rhythm and that’s one thing we didn’t want, but we kept forcing the ball and threw it about so they had to kick long.

“We’d talked about that all week, about trying to keep the ball in play and make them work a bit harder, and that's what happened really.

“Our scrum was outstanding and young Dan Gamble, our tighthead prop, had a really good game. He played 70 minutes, which he’d not done for a long, long time as he wasn’t getting game-time at Edinburgh, so that’s big plus for him.”

Looking ahead to this weekend, Tait added: “I’ve been very, very impressed with Heriot’s.

“They are probably the fittest team in the Super Series and they never gave Watsonians a chance on Friday.

“It was good to see them winning by playing rugby. I was really, really impressed by their defence and the general fitness of the whole team. They were like a swarm of bees over Watsonians every time they got the ball.

“It’s going to be very, very hard but we’re going into it after winning and hopefully our players that got knocked about can come through it and go again as we don’t really want too many changes if we can help it.

“It’ll be a really tough game – it always is over there – but we’ve got to look forward to challenges, as we always do.

“We just have to get a game-plan and try to find some weaknesses and have a look at them.”