Rugby’s 2024 Scottish Premiership play-off final to be a re-run of last year’s, with Hawick hosting Currie again

​Head coach Matty Douglas’s Hawick side earned their place in the final with a 25-9 Borders derby win at home at Mansfield Park to Kelso on Saturday, with Currie earning the right to a re-match with a 27-12 last-four victory at Marr at the same time.

That final will be contested, like 2023’s, in Hawick. A date has yet to be fixed but Saturday, May 4, is being suggested as a likely candidate.

The hosts’ three tries at the weekend’s play-off semi-final were scored by wingers Charlie Welsh and Ronan McKean and lock Dalton Redpath, with full-back Kirk Ford adding two conversions and two penalties.

Three Dwain Patterson penalty-kicks accounted for the visitors’ score.

Captain Shawn Muir was glad to see his side make it to back-to-back finals, telling Borders Rugby TV afterwards: “It was everything we expected.

“We knew they’d come firing out of the traps and they did. Fair play to them, in the first half, they maybe even edged it. They had a lot of the ball and I thought they were really good, but in the second half, we showed what we’re all about and why we’re champions.

“If I’m honest, I felt we left a few tries out there and we had another couple of levels still to go to, but at the end of the day, knockout rugby’s all about winning.”

Visiting player-coach Bruce McNeil, no stranger to Mansfield, having previously skippered Hawick, was happy with the account his current side gave of themselves even if it wasn’t enough to win the day, saying: “We’d been focusing on making a good start and trying to nullify the crowd here and I think, to our boys’ credit, we probably did that to a certain extent.

“The big message at half-time was that however well we’d played in the first 40 minutes, it was never going to be good enough to win the game. We knew we had to go to another level but unfortunately we couldn’t do that.

“We’d prepared well and we knew exactly what was coming. We knew it was going to be one of the toughest games we’ve played this season and, for some of the boys, in their entire career, to be fair, and it certainly was.

“It was great to play in and it was a great spectacle and thoroughly enjoyable.

“I’m hoping our boys get a taste for that and really want to kick on. These experiences can only make players better, hopefully.

“We wish Hawick all the best in the final, and I’m sure they’ll do well.

“We don’t have any regrets. We fired as many shots as we could, but at the end of the day, the better team won.”

Hawick’s next game is a Scottish cup first-round tie at Glasgow Academicals this Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm and a quarter-final at Dundee seven days later up for grabs, followed by a visit from Scottish National League Division 1 outfit Melrose on Saturday, March 23, for a Border League fixture.

Kelso haven’t got any fixtures confirmed at the moment but have got two Border League games left to play, away to Melrose and Gala.