Rugby’s South District Union name training squad for April fixtures
South District Union coaches have named a 38-strong training squad for games against Midlothian and Border Park next month and nine different clubs will be represented.
Training starts next week for the second-string answer to the South of Scotland team that finished as runners-up to Glasgow and the West in this season’s inter-district championship last Friday and their squad will be made up of 17 backs and 21 forwards.
With previously-announced head coach Scott Tomlinson now unavailable, fellow Souter David Cassidy will be stepping in, joining the union’s management team of Mick Lyall, Iain Heard, Doug Dodds, Cammy Hill and Richard Hume.
Heard said: “Just as the South has been a great chance for club players to step up to a higher level of rugby and represent the Borders, the SDU squad provide the same opportunity to boys playing at regional and second-XV level.
“It is great for the boys to get that chance, but it’s also brilliant for the clubs and the development of the game in the Borders to have this step up and we thank all the clubs, as well as clubs supporting Midlothian and Border Park, for their support for these games.
“We have a really strong squad and there has been a lot of excitement about selection, which has been extremely tough, and that intensity will only increase, I’m sure, over the Wednesday night sessions, which start on March 18 at Melrose.”
Making up that squad are Earlston’s Keith Young, Nathan Chisholm, Sandy Fairbairn, Josh Herbert and Ollie Smith; Gala Reivers’ Callum Corry; Kelso Sharks’ Harris Ross; Hawick Harlequins’ Eli Hamilton and Murray Renwick; Hawick Linden’s Liam Bouglas, John Frew, Filip Kubicki, Luke Scott and Tom Huggan; Langholm’s Bailey Donaldson, Ben Jardine, Ellis Dirom, Callum Henderson, Tom Hope and Chris Tait; Melrose Storm’s Seb Grant, Stuart Kirk, Cammy Robertson, Jack Henderson, Gregor Lindsay and Robbie Robinson; Selkirk A’s Oliver McClymont, Robbie Macdonnell, Finn Mallin, Finlay Wheelans, Ethan Wilson, Fraser Easson, Elliot Hastie, Archie Morris and Sean Macfarlane; and Duns’ Aidan McColm, Scott Miller and Adam Urwin.
The union are scheduled to play Midlothian at Peebles on Friday, April 17, and Northumberland’s Border Park seven days later at a venue to be confirmed.