Southern Knights: Head coach Alan Tait admits his team were 'asleep' early on in 40-26 defeat at Watsonians

Tries within the first few minutes by the hosts’ Freddie Owsley and Campbell Wilson – both converted by Jason Baggott – handed the Melrose visitors a mountain to climb.

"We gifted Watsonians a couple of tries in the first minutes of the game,” Tait told the Southern Reporter.

"We were just asleep really. We didn’t switch on quickly enough and they got a quick 14-point lead within the first 10 minutes which cost us.

"It was our fault because they weren’t outstanding. It wasn’t great things that Watsonians were doing.

"We’ve got a young team with a lot of players in their first year of Super Series rugby so the pace is a lot quicker, it’s a lot different and I think it caught a few of them out to be honest.”

But Knights kept plugging away after their poor start and Calum Barrett’s ninth-minute try converted by Cal Grieve pulled it back to 14-7.

Scores by Kieran Watt and Owsley – the first of which was converted by Baggott – made it 26-7 for Watsonians, although Will Ferrie and Barrett went over at the other end and Grieve’s conversion of this latter effort reduced Tait’s side’s deficit to seven points by half-time.

The home team added a further 14 points in the second half thanks to converted tries by Wilson and Kwagga van Niekerk, but Knights again showed their battling qualities by securing a bonus point in the dying minutes when Theo Nwosu-Hope went over for a score converted by Harris Rutherford.

“We didn’t manage to score a bonus point in the whole of the Sprint Series so it’s been something we’ve tried to work hard on with our attacking game,” Tait added.

"Obviously we got the three tries in the first half and I thought: ‘Let’s go for the bonus point and then let’s see where we are in the result’.

"The boys fought hard and we scored with the last play of the game so we got the four tries for the bonus point and it also got us to within 14 points.”

Having previously won 39-38 in their Fosroc Super Series Championship opener at home to Fosroc Future XV on July 28, Knights are second on six points from two games.