​Melrose moving up rugby’s Arnold Clark Premiership table but Kelso take a tumble after fifth loss on spin

​A 31-26 sixth-round win away to Glasgow Hawks on Saturday, their third of the season, has lifted Melrose up three places to fifth in the standings and, with 16 points to their name, they’re only three points off the top-four places.

Kelso, on the other hand, are second from bottom and, with eight points, only three points off the basement spot after being hit by their fifth defeat on the bounce at the weekend, by 48-19 hosting table-toppers Ayr.

Melrose’s tries at Balgray Stadium were dotted down by loosehead prop Will Owen, lock Elliot Ruthven, blindside flanker Will Ferrie and replacement prop Ben White, with right-winger Keiran Clark converting all four and also kicking a penalty.

Touching down for Hawks were blindside flanker Seb Hastings, outside centre Campbell Waugh, replacement full-back Euan Muirhead and fellow substitute Finlay Callaghan, with fly-half Liam Brims adding three conversions.

Tighthead prop Terry Logan, lock and co-captain Keith Melbourne and No 8 and joint head coach Bruce McNeil scored Kelso’s tries at their Poynder Park home ground and right-winger and co-skipper Dwain Patterson converted two of them.

Blindside flanker Ryan Sweeney got a hat-trick for their visitors on their way to their sixth bonus-point win on the spin, with captain and No 8 Blair Macpherson, loosehead prop Jamie Drummond, outside-centre Jamie Shedden and right-winger Cameron van Wyk at the double also touching down and fly-half Matt Unwin contributing four conversions.

Try-scorer White was delighted to return to Melrose with five points, telling Borders Rugby TV: “It was a decent win up at Hawks, a proper physical game.

“It was a bit end to end in the middle of the game – we’d score and then they’d score – but we stuck in until the end and came away with a win. I thought we did well moving the ball about.

“Credit to Hawks, they stuck at it until the end too, but we came out on top.”

Fly-half Liam Herdman is aware Kelso will have to raise their game if they’re to chart a way out of the top flight’s three-team relegation zone but is hopeful they can pull that off, saying: “We knew Ayr were going to come over with a game-plan to bring it hard to us and we knew that defence was going to be a big part of our game.

“We’re just letting teams score too easily and Ayr and other teams at the top are going to punish us for that.

“We know that, having come up into the premiership and trying to survive here, that we have to take chances when they come and when you get into the 22 of teams like Ayr, you have to come away with points.”

Kick-off at the Greenyards this weekend is at 3pm.

The two teams’ last meeting yielded a 34-12 home win for Melrose in a Border League stand-alone fixture in March but Kelso came out on top in their game before that, by 18-15 at home in Scottish National League Division 1 in February 2023, having lost the reverse fixture in October 2022 by 16-14.