​Kelso aiming for top four of rugby’s Scottish Premiership again, says co-skipper Keith Melbourne

That will be a more daunting prospect than the comeback season in the premiership concluded with a 29-5 play-off loss at Hawick in March due to the division being expanded to a dozen teams, many of them bolstered by semi-professional players rescruited from the Fosroc Super Series sides disbanded in June, but Melbourne is confident that’s a challenge his side – also able to call on ex-Super6 talent such as Angus McGregor, Grant Shiells, Harry Borthwick and Dan Gamble – will be able to meet.

“We can’t say we’re going to do worse than last year – it can’t be done,” lock Melbourne, co-skipper for the coming season alongside Dwain Patterson, told Borders Rugby TV after Saturday’s 37-19 warm-up Border League win at home to Gala.

“We’re definitely aiming to be in the top half of the table and in that top four again – we might sneak in, hopefully.”

Looking back over the weekend’s derby victory at Poynder Park, he said: “The first 65 minutes were really good. We managed the scoreboard really well. We didn’t let in any points until about the 65th minute.

“It just kind of fell away in the end. Maybe boys are still a bit tired, and there was the weather as well – playing against the wind in the second half didn’t really help.

“65 minutes were really good and the rest of the game was pretty average but there were definitely loads of positives and some things to work on still.”

Kelso got their latest Border League campaign, being contested in a league format again rather than in pools, off to a winning start to by touching down seven tries to their visitors’ three.

Their try-scorers were blindside flanker and co-head coach Bruce McNeil and left-winger Robbie Tweedie at the double, right-winger Archie Barbour, scrum-half William Tweedie and replacement Jack Utterson, making his first XV debut, with full-back Patterson adding a conversion.

Right-winger Ben Gill scored two tries for their Galashiels opponents and left-winger Ritchie Mitchell another, with replacement Russell Kerr converting two of those touchdowns.

Gala’s next Border League fixture is a Scottish National League Division 1 double-header at home to Jed-Forest on Saturday, September 14, and Kelso’s, also doubling up for premiership points, is away to Selkirk on December 14, both 3pm kick-offs.

Kelso begin only their second premiership season since 2000 at home to Edinburgh’s Watsonians – one of two teams parachuted into the top flight, along with Melrose, following the scrapping of the Super Series in the summer – this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm.

Gala begin their new National 1 season at home too this Saturday, Highland being their visitors at Netherdale, also a 3pm kick-off.

​Gala try-scorer Ben Gill reckons the performance his side put in against Kelso has put down a good marker for the rugby season ahead.

“We knew it was going to be a hard test and we didn’t really go into the game looking at the scoreboard – we were more just concerned about our performance and how we played,” he said.

“This was the first time all of the boys had come together, so I was pretty happy with how we played.

“We were against the wind in the first half and it was really hard to play against.

“I thought we stuck in as good as we could in the first half. In the second half, we made a few silly mistakes, but once we started getting things going, we really showed what we can do.

“We’ve got a lot of talented players and once we get going, like we did in the second half, we can show what we’re capable of, so now we’ll be looking to move that forward into next week and cut out the silly mistakes – we can iron that out in training – and go into next Saturday and show what we can do.

“If we go into it with the mentality we had today next week, we’re going to come out quite well.

“I thought we matched up to Kelso physically and mentally and, for the most part, we did really well.

“Defensively, we were very physical, especially in the first half. We put in a lot of dogged defence and in attack when we took our chances, it paid off, and that was against a premiership team in the play-offs last season, so the fact that we were up against a team like that and we put in the performance that we did, I think it’s a good showing for what’s to come this season.”

Kelso finished fourth in the premiership last time round, on 53 points from 18 fixtures, and Gala ended up eighth in the division below, on 39 from 18.