Southern Knights hoping to end Fosroc Super6 Championship rugby season with first home win

That victory, only their second of the season, confirmed that, barring an upset of epic proportions at home to Stirling Wolves this coming Saturday, the Borderers will finish second bottom of the table, though potentially only missing out on a play-off place by a couple of points.

The Melrose team’s win in the capital, assisted by Edinburgh pros Nick Auterac and Jaco van der Walt, leaves them fifth in the table, on ten points from nine games.

That’s seven behind their hosts at the weekend and five ahead of basement side Stirling Wolves, their visitors this Saturday for the final game of the regular season.

A bonus-point victory would see Stirling, the only other side the Borderers have beaten this campaign, by 20-3 away in August, draw level with the Greenyards outfit on ten points but they’d need to overturn a points-scored deficit of 112 to leapfrog them in the standings.

Knights head coach Bruce Ruthven says it’s a pity Saturday’s game, kicking off at 1pm, will effectively be a dead rubber but he’s hoping to see his side put on a show none the less to entertain fans ahead of Melrose’s Tennent’s National League Division 1 match against Glasgow High Kelvinside two hours later.

“It’s a shame because we’re within touching distance of Heriot’s now and, of course, that fourth spot would have got us into the play-offs,” he said.

“I know hindsight’s a great thing but we’ve had quite a few things that didn’t go our way over the last couple of months that, if they had, might have earned us an extra couple of bonus points or even a couple of wins that would have got us that fourth place.

“We’re looking forward to Stirling coming. It’s nice to finish the season with a home game as well as we’ve had a couple of away wins but we haven’t managed to seal a home win in the championship, so we’ll work hard and try to get one.

“It’s going to be a big day at Melrose because there are three games going on.”

Aidan Cross scored two of the Knights’ tries at the capital’s Goldenacre at the weekend in a matter of minutes and Auterac and David Colvine got the others, with van der Walt adding two conversions and a penalty.

Iain Wilson, Ruairidh Leishman and Jack Blain touched down for the hosts, with Ross Jones kicking a conversion and a penalty.

Reviewing that match, payback for a 31-21 defeat at the Greenyards last month, Ruthven said: “The boys played really well.

“The biggest difference to the previous two weeks away at Millbrae and Myreside was that we made a reasonable start to the game. We weren’t 15 points down within the first 15 minutes, so although we did lose an early score, we did feel that we had quite good parity at set-pieces and also in possession.

“We came away with a result and we thoroughly deserved it in the end.

“In our last three performances away from home against three very good teams, we’ve competed really well, so it’s good to get that result.

“It shows the boys what they’re capable of and that their hard work is paying off.”