​South of Scotland get off to winning start as revived inter-district rugby championship goes fourth

That opening 38-33 win at Musselburgh’s Stoneyhill ground was by the same margin of a handful of points as defending champions Glasgow and the West managed hosting Caledonia Reds, leaving the Borderers and Glaswegians neck and neck going into round two of the championship – the fourth since the competition’s revival in 2023 – this coming Saturday.

Head coach Scott Wight’s South are away to Caledonia in Aberdeen and the West will enjoy home advantage again as they take on Edinburgh, both 2pm kick-offs.

The red-and-white-hooped regional representatives and head coach Bob McKillop’s blue-clad hosts ended their game level on five tries apiece, with the boot of visiting full-back Archie Barbour proving to be the difference between the two teams, earning a maximum haul of five points for his side and forcing their opponents to settle for two.

The South’s tries were scored by hooker and captain Fraser Renwick, fly-half Liam Herdman, lock Jack Fisher, replacement Calum Renwick and left-winger Angus Utterson, with their No 15 converting all five and also kicking a penalty.

Touching down tries for Edinburgh, all but one of them converted by fly-half Calum Jessop, were openside flanker Sam Wallace at the double, loosehead prop Donald Voas, right-winger Harry Fisher and full-back Fraser Sayers.

Skipper Renwick was relieved to have ended up on the right side of the scoreline, saying: “It was tighter than we’d have liked at the end, but we did enough to take the five points away from home and that’s what counts.

“It’s been a real privilege to captain the South, though it comes easy really because there are a lot of leaders in this group so I don’t need to do too much.

“This is definitely a step up – district rugby is more physical and faster.

“What you saw at the end there was kind of what inter-district rugby is about. At this level, everyone’s always fighting to get back in the game and they have quality and the confidence that mean they can. When they get on the front foot, it’s hard to stop.

“We probably lost concentration when we got 35-14 up and let them get a couple of tries, all credit to them, and then it was kind of a dog-fight at the end.

“We didn’t make it easy for ourselves but we got there in the end.

“This was our first week together, our first game and that step up hit us all, but it’s great that we have three weeks together and we’ll get better.

“We can only build from this so we’re looking forward to Saturday and going to Aberdeen now.”

The two Renwicks were among six Greens in the South’s match-day squad of 23, that Mansfield Park contingent being outnumbered by representations of eight from Kelso and seven from Melrose, with Edinburgh’s Currie Chieftains also supplying a couple of players.

The other Greens selected were loosehead prop Shawn Muir, inside-centre Andrew Mitchell, No 8 Connor Sutherland and replacement Jae Linton.

Representing Kelso alongside Barbour, Herdman and Utterson were Hamish Tweedie, tighthead prop Dan Gamble and substitutes Euan Knox, Grant Shiells and Gregor Law.

Melrose’s starters were lock Angus Runciman, ⁠blindside flanker Sam Derrick, ⁠openside flanker Patrick Anderson and outside-centre Ben Pickles, with Douglas Crawford, Struan Hutchison and Jack Dobie on the bench.

Currie’s other representative besides Fisher was scrum-half Gregor Christie.

Also at Stoneyhill, as travelling reserves, were Melrose’s Donald Crawford and Gala’s Angus Dun.