New head coach Derek O’Riordan targeting taking Selkirk back up to top flight

The Souters’ new man in charge is former Edinburgh Academical, Musselburgh and Murrayfield Wanderers head coach Derek O’Riordan and he’s setting his sights on reversing this year’s relegation, though he readily concedes that overseeing a return to the Arnold Clark Premiership will be easier said than done.

It will certainly be a tougher proposition than their last elevation to the top flight in 2019, that having been as a job lot with Jed-Forest, Musselburgh, Marr, Aberdeen Grammar and Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians as a by-product of the creation of the now-defunct Super6 semi-professional franchises after finishing fifth in the second tier on 69 points from 22 fixtures.

Since then, the Philiphaugh club have finished fourth in the premiership in 2020, second from bottom in 2022 and 2024, fifth in 2023 and 2025 and bottom this year, with current Melrose co-head coach Scott Wight in charge from 2019 to 2023, followed by Gordon Henderson from 2023 until now.

O’Riordan’s been keeping tabs on those fluctuating fortunes as a neutral observer for the last year and opposition gaffer prior to that and he’s now relishing the prospect of being entrusted with trying to get the Souters back on the up.

“I’m very much looking forward to it,” said the 43-year-old, originally from Cork in Ireland but based in nearby Biggar these days.

“It’ll be nice after a year away from being a head coach to come back in at a club that are pretty excited about the future. It’ll be good to be part of that.

“I’ve heard chat around the club about bouncing back so it kind of took me aback when I read up about the club’s history and discovered they’ve never actually won a championship, so for me getting back into the premiership would be an outcome of building a championship-winning side and that’s something I’m keen to do over the next couple of years.”

O’Riordan says the Souters’ recent history, culminating in finishing 11 points adrift of Glasgow Hawks at the foot of the table on 26 points from 18 fixtures this year, is reminiscent of his three years in charge at Musselburgh up to last March – starting off with keeping them up, going on to challenge for a play-off place and ending up sixth the year after, then getting relegated.

“They looked super-competitive, particularly towards the back end of the season,” he reflected.

“It looked like they were coming good.

“I guess the challenges sometimes would be the same ones we faced at Musselburgh the year before. When your squad are relatively thin and you sustain a couple of injuries, you can be fighting a losing battle at times to try to maintain consistency in selection and performance. I’d guess they would have suffered much the same fate as we did the previous year due to the level of physicality in the league these days.

“We survived a relegation battle that first year that I was there, then we touched fourth place a few times during that second season and it felt like we were really kicking on, but then it was like the wind came out of our sails once the Super6 news came through and we didn’t have the playing resources to play catch-up. It almost felt like we were on a hiding to nothing going into that last season. We went out swinging but, unfortunately for us, the league had taken quite a significant step up in terms of physicality and we just couldn’t keep up.”

Selkirk will be going up against Musselburgh next term and O’Riordan is looking forward to those reunions home and away, saying: “I’ve still got some pretty solid friendships there and I’ve spoken to some of the guys there since getting this job.

“I’m looking forward to having some fun with them on the sidelines. It’ll be weird because I loved Musselburgh and I loved my time there, but it’ll be nice seeing those folk for a bit of friendly rivalry.”

O’Riordan’s links to Selkirk go beyond having fielded Musselburgh and Accies teams against them, his wife Emma, nee Meechan, having been brought up there, but he says the club’s appeal for him is as much or more about how they play rugby as anything else off the pitch.

“I’ve coached against them at Musselburgh and when I was at Accies as well, particularly memorably in that season when we got promoted and we won the championship on the last day in Selkirk,” he explained.

“Funnily enough, I’ve got other connections to the town as well – my wife was born in Selkirk and spent her early years there and her grandparents still live there.

“In a lot of ways, there’s a connection to Selkirk that makes it feel really nice to be joining the club in that regard.

“Equally, there’s a real identity about how the club play the game that’s really appealing to me, particularly on the attacking side, and generally the club feel like a really family-orientated place, not dissimilar to Musselburgh really, and that’s why they appeal to me as well.

“It seems like there are some really, really good folk who care deeply about the club leading them, so, for me, all the ingredients are there – they’re a club that are quite ambitious for the future, all the physical facilities are there and there’s a good playing group, including a really strong group of twos keen to kick on, as well as a number of colts who’ll be coming up into the senior side.

“I’ve had a few chats about the potential that exists within the squad. Despite the challenges they faced this season, they remained competitive right the way through, including a pretty battling performance against Ayr a few weeks ago, so if we can keep a group with that much potential together and keep them fit, then we can do some pretty good things, and that, for me, is the focus early doors – to have conversations with individuals within the team to ensure that we share a vision of where we want to take the club over the next two or three years and hopefully they’ll come on that journey with us.”

O’Riordan’s been coaching for the best part of two decades, having been at Murrayfield Wanderers for three years and Accies for four prior to taking charge at Musselburgh and he’s also coached Dunfermline and Scotland’s women’s national team after moving on from playing for Haddington and Boroughmuir as a back-rower.

He’s got two jobs away from club rugby, as an adviser on Olympic and Paralympic Sport to UK Sport and as a lecturer in sports coaching and management at Stirling University, and feels those various roles complement each other well, saying: “Each job kind of feeds the others, absolutely, but each one also gives you a break from the others, if that makes sense.

“I really like the balance I’ve got in my career. In my day job I work in Olympic and Paralympic programmes to plan for Los Angeles and Brisbane around the outcomes our athletes are after in terms of medals and whatever else, in the university it’s talking about the theoretical side of coaching and then I get to put all of that theory into practice on the field, so I’ve got a really nice balance.”

Welcoming O’Riordan to Philiphaugh, club president Graham Marshall said: “Selkirk are delighted to announce that Derek has accepted the post of head coach at the club.

“Over the years, Derek has worked with a number of clubs as assistant and head coach and he brings a huge amount of experience to Philiphaugh.

“Everyone at Selkirk looks forward to working with Derek as we prepare for the exciting challenge of National 1 rugby.”

Besides Musselburgh, Selkirk’s opponents next season will include Borders rivals Gala and Jed-Forest and O’Riordan’s South Lanarkshire home-town team, along with Boroughmuir, though Accies look set to have moved on by then, currently being four points clear of Stirling County at the top of the table, on 81 from 17 fixtures, with one game each left to play on Saturday, March 21.