Melrose stay at top of rugby’s Arnold Clark Premiership table after fourth win on spin

That 33-12 derby-day victory keeps their noses a point in front of defending champions Ayr, 38-26 winners away to Glasgow Hawks at the same time, and five ahead of Currie Chieftains, though the Edinburgh outfit have a game in hand.

Head coach Callum Anderson’s Greenyards side are now on 31 points from seven fixtures, with second-placed Ayr on 30 from seven and Currie on 26 from five.

Opposite number Graham Hogg’s Greens and the premiership’s other regional rivals, Kelso, both stay put, in eighth place and sixth respectively.

Hawick are now on ten points from six matches and co-head coaches Nikki Walker and Bruce McNeil’s Kelso, beaten 48-5 away to Currie on Saturday, are on 19 from seven.

Melrose have got a second derby on the spin on the way this coming Saturday, at Kelso’s Poynder Park, and Hawick are at home to Edinburgh’s fifth-placed Watsonians, both 3pm kick-offs.

Touching down for Melrose were right-winger Charlie Robbie at the double, inside-centre Gavin Wood, left-winger Donald Crawford and lock Sam Derrick, with fly-half Luke Townsend adding four conversions to take his points-kicked tally for the season to 64, the highest in the league by a margin of six.

Right-winger Jardine Vevers and replacement Mikey Swailes got the visitors’ tries, one of them converted by full-back Owain Gray.

Anderson was glad to see his side keep up their winning ways, telling the Offside Line rugby news website: “We said at half-time that we had to be better, but also to keep calm and trust in our systems.

“When we got the ball from the ruck a little bit better, you saw how well it went.”

Hogg added: “We stuck in the fight for the first 40 minutes, but discipline over the full 80 minutes killed us.

“To give away eight penalties in the first 16 minutes – we can’t do that against teams like Melrose and expect to come away with anything else.

“We know we have to control what we can control and large portions of that game we didn’t.”

Lock Cammy Thompson touched down Kelso’s sole, unconverted try in Balerno, with Ryan Stewart and Jacob Ramsay at the double, Gregor Christie, Roy Vucago, Mason Cullen and Robeson scoring at the other end of the pitch and Alex Harley adding three conversions and Fraser Sayers another.

Reflecting on that fourth loss of the season, offset by three wins, Walker said: “We had quite a few boys missing, which didn’t help, and made changes to the team, so we were a bit disjointed.

“I didn’t feel we were quite on it today. We weren’t desperate enough and I think that showed.

“We actually started the game pretty well, and if we had got a couple scores when we had that pressure, it might have been a different game.”