Selkirk host Borders derby v Melrose as Arnold Clark Premiership rugby season resumes for 2025

Selkirk are at home to Melrose at Philiphaugh this Saturday and their fellow Borderers Kelso and Hawick are in action at the same time, from 3pm, the former hosting Marr and the latter away to Edinburgh’s Watsonians.

Those first games of the new year follow a complete fixture card wipeout at the weekend due to pitches being hit by hard frost, but with temperatures forecast to rise from as low as -10C last Friday to as high as 10C this Saturday, clubs will be more confident about getting back on the ball.

Hawick were the first of the top flight’s dozen teams to throw in the towel at the weekend, calling off their scheduled Friday night rerun of May’s 26-24 premiership play-off final defeat at home at Mansfield Park to Edinburgh’s Currie Chieftains, due to have been broadcast live on BBC Alba, at lunchtime that day and Selkirk the last, rejecting the 3G school pitch proposed by table-toppers Ayr as an alternative to their frozen Millbrae Stadium home ground 40 minutes ahead of kick-off on Saturday.

A spokesperson for the Greens said at the time: “Sadly, it wasn’t even a close call.

“Our premiership game against Currie Chieftains due to take place on Friday evening at Mansfield Park has had to be postponed due to severe ground frost. The pitch is rock hard.”

Explaining the Souters’ refusal to play at Ayr’s Queen Margaret’s Academy on safety grounds after making the 100-plus-mile journey to the west coast, head coach Gordon Henderson told Borders Rugby TV: “It’s disappointing.

“We’ve trained really well all over the festive period and the boys are desperate to play but that park was pretty firm underfoot and it wasn’t taking a stud.

“It’s a flat 3G surface and there’s just no give in it.

“If someone knocked their head on that in a tackle, it would be a pretty serious injury, so, as a safety issue, we decided we weren’t going to play on that surface.”

Kelso and Melrose both had home games lined up, against Glasgow Hawks and Musselburgh respectively.

All four of those fixtures are to be rescheduled, with a date or dates to be confirmed.

Selkirk edged out Melrose by 24-22 away at the Greenyards at the end of September so they’ll be hoping to rack up a winning double against their regional rivals on home turf this weekend.

Their try-scorers were scrum-half Hugo Alderson at the double, full-back Callum Anderson and right-winger Josh Welsh, with Alderson kicking two conversions.

Hooker Logan Kirk, blindside flanker Will Ferrie and replacement Jack Dobie scored tries for co-head coaches Scott Wight and Iain Chisholm’s hosts, with inside-centre Roly Brett adding a penalty and two conversions.

September 28’s other reverse fixtures saw head coach Graham Hogg’s Hawick beaten 40-31 hosting Watsonians and co-gaffers Bruce McNeil and Nikki Walker’s Kelso losing out by 42-19 on the road in Troon.

The Greens’ tries were scored by left-winger Ronan McKean and outside-centre Andrew Mitchell at the double and No 8 Jae Linton, with fly-half Kirk Ford adding two conversions and inside-centre Lee Armstrong another.

Tom Gracie scored two tries for their visitors, with Cal Davies, Murray Tink, Freddie Owsley and Lewis Berg also touching down and Chris Bell kicking five conversions.

No 8 McNeil scored two tries for Kelso in South Ayrshire, with left-winger Robbie Tweedie touching down another and right-winger and co-captain Dwain Patterson adding two conversions.

Marr’s tries were touched down by Scott Clelland at the double, Andrew Ramage, Fraser Grant and Andrew Acton, with Colin Sturgeon kicking four conversions and three penalties.

Melrose go into this weekend sitting fifth in the 12-team table, on 35 points from 13 fixtures, with Selkirk sixth, on 32 from 12; Hawick eighth, on 28 from 12; and Kelso tenth, on 21 from 13.