Head coach Scott Wight hoping to bring back South of Scotland Barbarians

Craig Jackson in action for South of Scotland Barbarians at Melrose Sevens on Saturday (Photo: Bryan Robertson)

Southern Knights attack coach Wight’s new boys beat Edinburgh’s Watsonians 40-7 in round two, fellow invitational outfit Hearts and Balls 38-7 in the last eight and a Durham University side 32-7 in the semi-finals to set up a showdown with eventual winners Shogun.

They lost that final 21-5 but Wight was encouraged enough by their performances over the piece to want to do it all over again and take another shot at securing silverware not won by a Borders-based rugby side since 2011.

The 38-year-old was captain of the Melrose side that won their own sevens at the Greenyards 13 years ago, went on to repeat that feat as a Glasgow Warriors player in 2014 and he’s now hoping for a chance to get third time lucky as a coach after being pipped to the post by Shogun, coached by fellow Borderer Fraser Harkness and Nick Wakley.

Scott Wight pictured in 2017 (Pic: SNS Group/SRU/Kenny Smith)

“In terms of the feedback we’ve received about the way we played, people seemed to enjoy it and our sponsors are mad keen for another shot,” he said.

“Everybody seems keen to go again – if we get invited, of course – and everybody spoke of it highly and enjoyed the experience.”

Though not as Borders-based as initially envisaged, Gala’s Kerr Johnston having been ruled out by injury, Wight’s Barbarians included two familiar faces in their starting seven for the final, Melrose’s Craig Jackson and Hawick’s Hector Patterson, alongside Biggar’s Fergus Watson, Marr’s Scott Bickerstaff, ex-Edinburgh winger Freddie Owsley and Spaniards Tiago Romero and Jaime Mata.

A further three featured among their replacements, Selkirk’s Monroe Job and Ethan McVicker and Melrose’s Finn Douglas, plus Marr’s Conor Bickerstaff and sometime Southern Knight Callum Grieve.

Wight was delighted to see his side make it through to the last hurdle despite only all having only got together hours earlier, saying: “We knew our squad were talented. The only thing we were unsure about was our lack of preparation and essentially how our 12 players would gel together, but looking back over the day, everybody was outstanding.

“Everybody was socially very good and the buzz within the squad was great.

“We actually only met up on Saturday morning for bacon rolls and stuff at Earlston Rugby Club, which was really nice.

“We took everybody away from Melrose and the busyness there for the boys to get to know one another.

“I thought the whole thing was brilliant, and with the energy that all of them brought, it all kind of fell into place, but unfortunately we came up just a wee bit short.”

Explaining the presence of Spanish sevens internationals Romero and Mata in a squad representing the region, Wight said he was glad of the experience they brought and was hopeful that some of the younger members of his line-up will have learned a thing or two from them, as well as from their opponents.

“These guys didn’t get selected for the Hong Kong Sevens so their head coach wanted them to come to Melrose to experience our sevens and we had the ability via the Barbarians to make that happen,” he said.

“Looking back, I’m glad we did that because we had young kids like Hector Patterson and Monroe Job not only playing with Spanish internationalists but also playing against six or seven Great Britain athletes as well in the final and that was brilliant.

“The final itself was a real high-quality rugby sevens game.

“If I’m being brutally honest, if you go man for man across our squads, they were definitely stronger on paper, but I thought in terms of upsetting them, we did really well. We got in their faces, we didn’t give them any space, we didn’t give them any time on the ball.

“The way the guys took on our game-plan was excellent.

“It was only the bounce of a ball just before half-time from a cross-field kick that had us go in 14-0 down instead of 7-0, and we’d also had an opportunity early on when it was 0-0 and they were down to six men but we got caught at the back of a ruck and didn’t move the ball quickly enough. If we’d moved the ball quicker when we were a man up, you never know what might have happened.

“They had that wee bit more experience and it came through in the end.”