Selkirk aiming to finish in top four of rugby’s Tennent’s Premiership, says head coach Scott Wight

Wight reckons that Borders derby might well be his team’s toughest test yet this Tennent’s Premiership rugby season despite already having played the Greens away, picking up a 20-20 draw on the opening day of the season in August, as the Souters’ form on the road has been better than at Philiphaugh.

“Looking at it now, I’d probably say we played them at the right time of the year,” he said.

“Funnily enough, we play the team they’ve played the Saturday before every week so we have the added benefit of having watched all their games, and, in my eyes, they’ve got better every week.

“They’re really strong up front and that’s something we’re going to have to look at for Saturday.

“I know what they boys will be like, though, and they’ll be desperate to get one over on them."

Selkirk suffered their second home loss of this campaign, by 29-20 against Currie Chieftains, on Saturday, passing up a chance to leapfrog their visitors in the table.

The hosts’ tries were scored by Josh Welsh and Aaron McColm, with the latter adding two penalties and two conversions.

DJ Innes got two of their Edinburgh visitors’ tries, with Gregor Nelson and Cammy Meager scoring the others and Adam Hall converting three of them and kicking a penalty.

“Looking back, I think it’s probably fair to say the better team ended up winning,” said Wight.

“I think we got a wee bit of a backlash after they lost to Hawick so heavily the Saturday before.

“Unfortunately for us, we weren’t able to match the intensity we’d been at against Marr the previous weekend, and that’s obviously something we’ve got to look at because we’ve got another huge challenge this Saturday.

“Up until Saturday, we’ve actually performed pretty well and got a few good results away from home.

“We’re actually better away this year than we have been at home and that’s something we’ve got to look at as well. We’re undefeated away from home but we’ve beaten twice at home, so that’s something we’re not happy about and something we’ll definitely need to address before Saturday.

“We’ll be looking at where we could make small improvements from last Saturday against Currie and the focus then shifts to Hawick and where their strengths are and any weaknesses we can target.”

Saturday’s defeat leaves Selkirk fourth in the table, with 25 points from eight games, Currie now being seven points ahead of them in third place.

“We’re in a good position and it’s all about kicking on now and trying to finish in the top four – and if we manage that, it’ll go to one-off games, a semi-final and final – and that’s certainly our target after making such a positive start to the season,” added Wight, 36. “We’re in a good place.”

The Souters lose Ryan Godsmark’s services this week as he’s returning to Belgium and will also be without Andrew Grant-Suttie for a while as he’s been sidelined by a suspected facial fracture.