Melrose up to third in rugby’s Arnold Clark Premiership after racking up win No 3 of season

That 28-26 victory at the Greenyards takes head coach Callum Anderson’s side level with second-placed Currie Chieftains on 16 points from four fixtures, only trailing unbeaten league leaders Ayr by four points.

Saturday didn’t work out so successfully for the Borders’ other top-flight teams, Kelso and Hawick, both ending up losing out at home, by 28-26 to Ayr and 33-19 to Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians respectively, though the former got within a whisker of halting the table-toppers’ 100% start to the current campaign.

Four rounds in, those were Kelso and the Greens’ third losses of the season, leaving co-head coaches Nikki Walker and Bruce McNeil’s Poynder Park outfit seventh in the table on nine points and opposite number Graham Hogg’s Mansfield Park men eighth on five.

Melrose are the premiership’s only Borderers staying on home turf this coming Saturday and they’ll be going up against their third capital city side on the bounce, sixth-placed Watsonians.

Kelso and Hawick will both be hitting the road, with the former facing fifth-placed GHA and the latter basement side Glasgow Hawks.

All three of those fixtures kick off at 3pm.

Melrose’s tries, all converted by fly-half Luke Townsend, were touched down by replacement hooker Craig Greer at the double, loosehead prop Jack Dobie and Struan Hutchison, another of the hosts’ substitutes.

Struan Talac scored two tries for Heriot’s – third at kick-off but now down to fourth, having swapped places with their hosts – with Ross McKnight and Thomas Glendinning also touching down and Isaac Coates adding three conversions.

Fly-half Liam Herdman chalked up two tries for Kelso to take his tally for the season to five, with No 8 McNeil and full-back Archie Barbour touching down too and the latter kicking three conversions as well.

Ayr’s tries were scored by Jack Haynes, Tim Brown, Ryan Sweeney and Lewis McNamara, with Liam Brims’ four conversions out of four proving to be the difference between the two teams.

Hooker Fraser Renwick, outside-centre Andrew Mitchell and No 8 Jae Linton got on the scoresheet for Hawick, with fly-half Zane Glanville adding two conversions.

GHA’s try-scorers were Euan McKirdy, Charlie Lonergan, Callum Norrie, Ben MacDougall and Struan White, with full-back MacDougall kicking four conversions.

Melrose head coach Anderson was chuffed to bits to see his purple-clad team tighten their grip on a play-off place, telling the Offside Line rugby news website: “I’m absolutely delighted.

“I was really pleased with the effort.

“I was really impressed by our attitude, especially when we went down to 14. We almost got more workrate out of them when that happened.

“In the past, I think we could sometimes be accused of being a bit soft, but I think there’s a real edge there now.”

Kelso’s Walker was also happy with his side’s performance, saying: “We fronted up, so I’m really pleased with that.

“Those two bonus points could be really important and it’s great that we managed to get them.

“I just think we opened the door in the first half by sticking in and defending really well against the wind and actually scoring a couple of tries ourselves, but then in the second half we never actually walked through it.

“We gave ourselves the opportunity to go and win it, but that’s where we are. We’re striving to be a top-four team, and I think we showed that we can be last year when we came up just slightly short. We want to convert that this year to get into the play-offs, so we’re going to have to start taking these opportunities sooner or later.

“We’ve got games coming up in the next couple of weeks that if we show the same level of performance and consistency in, then we should be able to pick up some wins and get ourselves up the table.”

Hawick’s Hogg, on the other hand, wasn’t at all happy with the account his side gave of themselves, adding: “We were ridiculously poor – there’s no shying away from that – and that was on both sides of the ball.

“What we produced out there today is not acceptable to this club.”