Scotland club rugby XV coach Scott Wight hoping to get third time lucky v Irish

The former Melrose and Southern Knights co-head coach returns as one of Bob McKillop’s three assistants this time round and he’s setting his sights on helping him secure the Scots’ first Dalriada Cup victory since 2018.

Next year’s staging of the cup will be the 16th since the competition’s launch in 2006, with Ireland’s club XV totting up nine wins to Scotland’s six.

The most recent of those victories for Ireland were by 42-33 at Donnybrook, near Dublin, in February this year and 61-34 on aggregate six years prior after defeats for Scotland by 39-17 at Netherdale in Galashiels at the end of that January and 22-17 away a week later, the former with McKillop as head coach and Wight as one of his assistants and the latter with Wight in charge.

Former Melrose and Glasgow Warriors fly-half Wight, 41 this Thursday, is glad to be helping Stirling County head coach McKillop out again, together with fellow assistants Andy Hill and Andy Henderson, saying: “It’s something that I’ve always taken a huge amount of interest in.

“Even as a player, I was always wanting to be part of it, and to come full circle and to be asked to be involved in the coaching team now it’s been resurrected is a huge honour. It’s something that’s really enjoyable.

“Obviously we came up short last year against Ireland but I think that was down to where the squad were at that point after all those years of not playing as a club XV.

“That was evident in the fact that we had something like 17 new caps playing international rugby, so we got caught a bit short in Ireland, but I think the club international boys will be able to deal with it a bit better now, essentially, they know the level they need to be at.”

Current South of Scotland inter-district championship squad head coach Wight’s soon-to-be three stints of coaching the country’s club XV follow three seasons as a player from 2009, yielding one win, by 31-18 at home in 2009, and two defeats against the Irish, by 21-18 away in 2010 and 32-30 at home in 2011

He’s still got happy memories of those games – playing alongside the likes of his Greenyards teammates John Dalziel, Fraser Thomson and Callum Anderson and Selkirk’s Fraser Harkness and Lee Jones – recalling: “That’s the special thing about rugby that you can still speak to people involved in those teams all these years later and the camaraderie and friendships are still there, having played against them for your clubs and then becoming teammates.

“I just hope that one day it can get back to being more like it was because we were fortunate enough to play France, Ireland and England so it had more of a Six Nations feel about it.

“At the moment, it’s just a one-off game against Ireland but hopefully at some point that will become two games a year or three games a year.

“It’s just a great opportunity. Some people never get an opportunity to sing the national anthem, so it’s a really good thing to have back in the club rugby calendar.”

Next year’s game against the Irish is provisionally pencilled in for Friday, February 19, with a venue yet to be confirmed, and Wight is expecting the Scots’ squad to be named in December.

“The inter-district championship is on for the next three weeks and I think we’ll then reconvene as coaches after that and try and sort out a squad get-together just prior to Christmas, so we’ll probably be looking at announcing the squad at the start of December,” he said.

Looking ahead to February’s match, McKillop added: “It’s a huge honour to be asked to coach the Scottish club XV side again this year.

“Last year was about re-establishing the fixture in the calendar and in the hearts and minds of the players. This year, we have a great opportunity to build on that, and hopefully club fans and players will come out to support players they play with, play against or watch every week.

“If you spoke to anyone involved last season, I think they’d tell you they loved every minute of it.

“From the moment the squad first met on a Sunday morning at Murrayfield to arriving back from Dublin, the buzz was fantastic.

“You could tell how special the experience was to the players and how much they enjoyed each other’s company.”