Melrose name Callum Anderson as head coach for new rugby season after a month in interim charge
Melrose have appointed their former winger Callum Anderson as their new head coach, just over a month on from giving him that job on an interim basis ahead of the new Arnold Clark Premiership rugby season kicking off on Saturday gone.
The 38-year-old – a winger, then centre and finally full-back as a player for Melrose and Peebles – replaces co-head coaches Scott Wight and Iain Chisholm, the former now taking charge of the South of Scotland’s inter-district championship squad alongside youth coaching at the Greenyards and the latter running Singapore’s rugby sevens programme.
Anderson, previously head coach for Melrose’s sevens team, is delighted to take up that position, saying: “It’s really exciting. It’s nice.
“I’ve been here for a number of years, so it’s good to be in this position at a club I’m familiar with and now we can try to build going forward.”
He’s also pleased that appointment was made ahead of the start of the new season, albeit only by a margin of two days, to dispel potential uncertainty about back-room goings-on just as the new campaign is getting under way following friendly wins away to Ilkley in West Yorkshire by 60-10 and at home to Selkirk by 54-7 earlier in August.
“It’s nice to have got it sorted so we don’t have to think about that and we can concentrate on the real thing, which is going into the season and coaching and suchlike,” he said.
Melrose went on to kick off the new season with a 34-31 victory away to Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians at the weekend and Anderson – not to be confused with his club’s new full-back of the same name, recruited from Selkirk alongside former Philiphaugh teammate Ben Pickles – was glad to see his side hang on to their lead after going 29-12 up by half-time only to fall 31-29 behind as the final whistle neared.
“It was good to start with a win and it was good the manner we did it in,” he said.
“We were well up at half-time and then we let GHA back into it, but we managed to find a way of ekeing out a win and that, psychologically, is really good.
“If we can bring that sort of energy and we can get across that message – ‘we know what you guys can do, so just keep believing in your ability’ – we’ll be all right.”
Though Melrose finished third from bottom of the premiership last time round, on 38 points from 18 fixtures, points-wise they ended up closer to the division’s play-off places than they did to since-relegated basement side Selkirk, trailing fourth-placed Watsonians by ten points but keeping a dozen clear of the Souters, and Anderson, a teacher at Earlston High School, is setting his sights on bridging that gap to the top four.
“Absolutely we’re targeting a play-off place,” he said.
“I wasn’t really involved all that much last season, but there were a few close games that slipped away late on and if we’d put two or three of them away, we’d have been at the other end of the table.
“It was very tight in that middle section of the table.”
It won’t be all change at the Greenyards despite a coaching team rejig – with Craig Greer, Bruce Colvine, Opeta Palepoi, Douglas Dodds and tighthead prop Zen Szwagrzak assisting Anderson – and their new head coach reckons any difference in approach will be more a case of evolution than revolution.
“We were already in the process of making changes,” he said.
“It’s more about culture rather than changing the way we play or anything like that.
“There are subtle changes in our focus but it’s not like it’s out with the old and in with the new.
“I’m very much focused on continuity and implementing the things we were trying to do already.”
There has been a fair bit of change among Melrose’s playing personnel, with the likes of Corey Goldsborough and Declan Mulcahy returning to Australia and Will Ferrie, Ben Weir and Oliver Anderson moving on, to Newton Stewart, Watsonians and United Rugby Championship outfit Edinburgh’s academy respectively, and, heading in the other direction, Gavin Wood returning from down under and the younger Anderson and Pickles arriving from Selkirk, but the No 15’s namesake regards that as part and parcel of summertime for rugby clubs rather than too much of an upheaval.
“That’s just the nature of rugby,” he said. “There are always lots of ins and outs, but so long as you’ve got a core group, you can get the consistency you need, and we’ve got a great core of very hard-working boys.
“Corey and Declan might be out, and they were brilliant and their energy about the place was excellent, but we’ve now got Callum and Ben in and they’ll be great.”
He’s also glad to see Wood back, adding: “He went away for a year and came back four years later.
“He’s another player that had been here for years and played for the Southern Knights for a bit.
"He’s brilliant. He’s a great leader.”
Round two of the new season brings a visit from Glasgow Hawks this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm, and Melrose, again with Angus Runciman as captain, will be hoping it goes the same way as the corresponding fixture last term, a 13-5 win for the hosts in October.
Looking ahead to that match, Anderson said: “We’ll just look after ourselves and make sure we do what we do and do it to the best of our ability.”
Away from the playing pitch, Melrose also have a new president in post for their 150th anniversary season, former Edinburgh head coach Rob Moffat having taken over from George Runciman.