Selkirk in seventh heaven over Border League title win against Melrose

The Souters edged out Melrose by 12-6 at Netherdale in Galashiels on Monday night to claim only their seventh title in the 122-year history of the oldest surviving rugby union league in the world.

That might be more than a dozen titles shy of the 20 amassed by their opposition this week, the second most successful side in the contest’s history, and 43 short of the half-century hit by Hawick last year, but head coach Scott Wight’s Selkirk side are just happy to be making up ground on the four sides above them in league’s roll of honour and to put a bit more distance between themselves and sixth-placed Kelso’s tally of a handful of wins.

Tries by Aaron McColm and Ryan Cottrell, the former converted by Craig Jackson, won 2023’s title for the Tennent’s Premiership outfit, their lower-league opposition only being able to muster two David Colvine penalties in reply.

With only a single converted score separating the Souters from their Tennent’s National League Division 1 opponents, the two sides weren’t poles apart, arguably being just a single Pole apart – international prop Zen Szwargzak having jumped on a jet after his side’s 18-17 loss to Belgium in the Netherlands in Rugby Europe’s men’s championship the day before to take part, his dedication to the cause typifying that demonstrated by his club over a rain-lashed 80 minutes back in the Borders.

Getting to 12-3 in front at half-time set Selkirk up to take the scoreline out of Melrose’s reach, but that didn’t happen as they failed to add a single point post-interval, though Finlay Wheelans thought he’d added a third try only to have it chalked off by referee Ross Mabon for a knock-on.

Jackson also missed a chance to extend his side’s lead with a penalty 40m out in front of the posts, kicking wide and letting Melrose off the hook again.

The Philiphaugh side were almost made to rue those squandered opportunities later as a Melrose rolling maul pushed them back 20m, yielding a penalty and a yellow card for Scott McClymont, but they fluffed their lines at the ensuing lineout.

Selkirk co-captain Luke Pettie credits club veteran Ross Nixon with inspiring the Souters to their seventh – and his fourth – Border League title win on Monday night.

“Credit to the boys, we stuck in until the 80th minute there,” he told Borders Rugby TV afterwards.

“It’s massive. It wasn’t anything pretty – I don’t know if it was ever going to be – but we’re happy with 12-6.

“There were a few messages coming in from the boys throughout the whole day and Ross Nixon, who’s a man of few words, just said ‘listen, 115 years this has been played, six times we’ve won it – let’s make it seven tonight’.

“A lot of the boys just proved we’ve got a bit of character and we follow Ross because he’s a Selkirk stalwart, and I’ve said that time and time again.

“We saw the effort they put in tonight.

“It was never going to be easy – Border derbies never are. We’ve got plenty of experience of them – we’ve been there before – and they’te tough, but we just stuck to our guns and it paid off in the end.

“Credit to Melrose, they turned up. It doesn’t matter what league Melrose are playing in, it’s always going to be tough. They’re a good young bunch of boys.

“In the Borders, it’s never going to be a spectacle final of running rugby on a Monday night. They were coming at us and they were only one try away at the end from getting the opposite result.”

Selkirk’s most recent Border League title win was back in 2010, their others prior to that having been in 1935, 1938, 1953, 2008 and 2009, Nixon having played in their four last finals.

Melrose head coach Bert Grigg has told of his pride at the display put in by his side against Selkirk despite coming away from Galashiels empty-handed.

“It was physical. It was probably your classic sort of derby,” he said.

“Their early score kind of killed our momentum for a little bit, but we talked about it at half-time, and I know it means very little but we won that second half and proved that we could compete.

“It was just those little things that maybe let us down on the night at a couple of crucial times – a couple of over-throws, a couple of missed chances.

“It’s a young squad we’ve got as well and it’s a good bit of experience.

“We talked before the game about wanting to be able to compete with the top end of the Tennent’s Premiership and I don’t think anyone could deny that we did that.

“For us, it was about getting our set-piece right, and we never gave their backs an opportunity to play, and when we got our maul right, you could see how much damage we could do.”

Grigg also expressed his admiration for youngster Ryan Cottrell’s try, a grubber kick he followed up and then kicked again before putting his hand on it, describing it as a touchdown worthy of winning any game of rugby.

“If that’s what wins them the game, then that’s a good bit of rugby to win with,” he said.

“Our kick-chase could maybe have been a little bit better and we could have snuffed that out but full credit to Ryan for finishing it, that’s for sure.”

The most recent of Melrose’s 20 Border League title wins was in 2019, their others being between 1911 and 2018.