Melrose maintain 100% start to new rugby season with back-to-back bonus-point wins

Defending champions Ayr and Edinburgh’s Currie Chieftains are the only other top-flight teams to have kicked off the new term with back-to-back bonus-point wins, with the former taking pole position and the latter second place by virtue of better points-scored differences than third-placed Melrose.

This season is the Greenyards club’s first to begin with successive successes since 2021, that term, in what was then Tennent’s National League Division 1, having started with four victories on the bounce that September – at home to Heriot’s Blues by 26-15 and Dundee by 36-15 and away to Boroughmuir by 36-0 and Watsonians by 80-21.

Either Melrose or Currie’s 100% start will end this coming Saturday, however, as they play each other at the capital’s Malleny Park, with kick-off at 3pm.

Ayr are at home to Hawick at the same time and the premiership’s other Borderers, Kelso, are, like Melrose, hitting the road north to the capital, to take on fifth-placed Heriot’s in their case.

Hawick and Kelso’s upcoming away-days follow a 29-28 derby win for the former at home to the latter on Saturday gone, extending the Poynder Park outfit’s wait for their first league win ever at Mansfield Park by at least another year or so.

Angus Runciman-skippered Melrose’s try-scorers versus Hawks were replacement front-row Craig Greer at the double, blindside flanker Craig Fairbairn, lock Sam Derrick, inside-centre Gavin Wood, back-row substitute Henno Bowe and head coach Callum Anderson’s namesake at No 15 – one of three Andersons in their starting XV, the others being hooker Millar and openside flanker Patrick – with fly-half Luke Townsend adding four conversions and replacement Roly Brett two and a penalty.

Jonah Hastings and Fraser Muir scored unconverted tries for the visiting Glaswegians.

Hawick’s tries as they fought back from falling 28-12 behind with 25 minutes left on the clock were touched down by fly-half Cian Riddell, outside-centre Andrew Mitchell, lock Hughie Donaldson, replacement scrum-half Liam Bouglas and inside-centre Luke Scott, with right-winger Eli Hamilton and substitute Zane Glanville adding a conversion apiece, the latter’s kick winning the game for the hosts right at the death.

Dwain Patterson, full-back Liam Herdman, right-winger Archie Barbour and left-winger Angus Utterson scored tries for co-head coaches Nikki Walker and Bruce McNeil’s visitors, two of them converted by fly-half Patterson.

Anderson senior was pleased to see his Melrose team keep up their dominance to the final whistle, telling the Offside Line rugby news website: “We’re really happy how we stuck in after half time

“We had a very clear message at the break – we’re taking that on board and you can see that.

“I think we were really accurate, especially in our set-piece.

“Our ability to adapt and pick where the space is worked well too. Hawks had maybe recognised that we’re quite good on the edge with Ben Pickles and Callum Anderson. They tried to close that space and we adapted pretty quickly.”

Hawick head coach Graham Hogg was also a happy man come dinner-time on Saturday after watching his team bounce back from both an 80-13 spanking away to Heriot’s a week earlier and falling 16 points behind on the day, saying: “I never think we’re beaten until the final whistle.

“Did I think we were going to come back and score at the end like that? Probably not, but I knew there was a bit of fight in them.

“This lot are young – they’re naive at times, but they are brave.

“There’s not many teams that get beaten by 80 points and then come back and win the following week, but this was a perfect game for us after that.

“We spoke about how we’d been here before. We got pumped 93-nil against Ayr last year and we went to the Greenyards a week after and beat Melrose, so there is previous.

“Massive credit has to go to the boys for that fight that they bring. We showed that that green jersey means something and that’s the bit I’m massively proud of.”

Former Hawick captain McNeil, playing at No 8 for the visitors, was gutted to witness his current club throwing away a golden opportunity to claim a first away league win versus Hawick, adding: “We came here to break that record for the club and it is gutting that we didn’t.

“They are a resilient bunch and kept fighting, but I think we maybe went into defensive mode slightly early, after we scored that try after half-time, and we probably should have kept attacking. You have to play for 85 minutes to win here and ultimately we didn’t.”

The two bonus points Kelso salvaged from Saturday’s derby defeat leave them fourth in the table, on seven points, and the Greens are sixth, on five.