New Melrose invitational rugby sevens side make it to final at debut tournament

Saturday’s pool games saw the Borderers, coached by Melrose co-gaffer Iain Chisholm, beaten by a side sent along to the Swiss tournament by French Top 14 club Toulouse and Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia Gladiatori development team but they got the better of Georgia’s SC Armia to make it into the last eight.

Come Sunday, they then knocked out Spain’s Viator Barbarians in the quarter-finals and saw off Toulouse second time round in the semis, with respective scorelines of 33-0 and 24-21, to reach the final but lost out by 14-7 to host team Switzers.

Team manager Doug Crawford rates making it that far on their debut despite losing a quarter of their dozen-strong squad to injury along the way as a success story, however.

“We were delighted to get to the final,” he said.

“We would obviously have liked to win it, but for our first tournament together, I think it was a big success just to get to the final.

“Our squad clicked really quickly and everyone got on well.

“We had some brilliant guest players come in together with our own ones and they bonded well on the pitch and off it as well.

“It was a great success and really good fun.”

Crawford is champing at the bit to get the side back together before 2025 is out but fears they’ll have to hold their horses for now, saying: “We’d love to do another tournament this year but it’s potentially more likely to be next year now.

“If an opportunity arises to go on another tour towards the end of the calendar year, though, we’d jump at it, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Corey Goldsbrough was the only one of the six Melrose players accounting for half the squad ruled out by injury ahead of the final but Heriot’s George Coull and Ayr’s Tom Lanni also picked up knocks, leaving their side short-handed for Sunday’s final.

“Unfortunately, George Coull hurt his knee and Tom Lanni hurt his shoulder, though we’re not too sure how badly in either case, and Corey Goldsbrough was struggling with his hip, so we were down to nine by the final, which wasn’t ideal, but all things considered, we did well to take it so close,” said Crawford.

The visitors’ other Melrose players were Donald Crawford, Connor Spence, Declan Mulcahy, Scott Clark and Ruairidh Lindsay, and they were accompanied by Darlington’s Yaree Fantini, Ayr’s Bobby Beattie, Durham University’s Boris Ames and Spanish sevens internationalist Miguel Reina.

The aim of the new side is to represent the club that invented rugby sevens 142 years ago on the world stage and they hope to be able to compete at high-profile events such as the Hong Kong Tens and United Arab Emirates’ Dubai Sevens in years to come, funding alllowing.

Completing Melrose’s 15-strong party, along with Crawford and Chisholm, was physiotherapist Amy Inglis.

Also among the eight teams competing at Geneva’s Cherpines Sports Centre were England’s Scimitar Storm and Poland’s Winged Hussars.