Quiet belief that Selkirk will take something from Marr trip

The Souters felt they’d played well the previous week at Aberdeen, only to lose 30-17, but they avenged that to an extent with a 28-8 victory at Philiphaugh last weekend over Dundee HSFP.

Tomorrow, they take on Marr, who retained their lead in League One by a single point after a 33-7 win over the men from the Granite City.

Selkirk have a fairly strong squad to take west with them and were bolstered at the weekend by the return of Darren Clapperton – who scored a try – and Andrew ‘Jock’ Renwick, while they are also hoping Josh Welsh will be fit again after an ankle injury.

Manager Tom Ramage was reasonably confident of extracting something from the game, as Selkirk looked ahead to meeting several of the top teams in the league run-in.

“We’ll go there with – I wouldn’t say high hopes of taking a win home – but just quietly in the background, thinking we could maybe take this Marr team, or at least get something out of the game,” he said. “It’s not an easy place to go and play a game of rugby. The pitch is tight to the touchline – it’s a tight wee field there. It kind of suits them but we like the wide open spaces.”

Looking back over last weekend, Ramage said he was happy with the way things went – eventually.

“They are a stuffy side, Dundee,” he said. “At half time it was 14-8 and, as the score suggests, we didn’t have it all our own way. There again, there were silly little mistakes, especially in attack. We could have scored maybe another four or five tries but for knock-ons here, or a wrong decision in places. I thought the boys did well and, to ‘nil’ them in the second half, we upped the game a wee bit. We ‘nilled’ them and got another two tries in second half. I was quite delighted with that and the way the forwards took them on up front as well, as Dundee have a big pack.”