Melrose hold no fears for fired up Currie

Jamie Forbes of Currie on the attack. Picture: Greg Macvean

Needing to record a bonus point success to oust title holders Heriot’s from fourth spot and secure the last of the places in the knockout phase of the competition, Currie left nothing to chance, bagging five tries in the first half then matching that tally in the second period.

Cairns was delighted with the manner in which his men approached the task, saying: “We changed nothing – we said all we do is play a real intensity and tempo and play to our structure and that will be enough to get the scores we need. That’s what we did.”

And of the semi-final clash, he added: “Down at Melrose we will chuck everything at it. With the levels we have shown we can go down there confident and give it a really good crack.”

Dynamic skipper Ross Weston had the first try of each half and he was joined on the score sheet by Robbie Nelson, who also had a double, Graeme Carson, John Cox, Ben Robbins, Matt Hooks, Harvey Elms and Dan Marek, while Jamie Forbes weighed in with seven conversions and a penalty.

The performance came despite the timing of the fixture meaning that Cairns was without his Scotland Under 20 contingent as well as others such as Richard Snedden and Fergus Scott, who are long-term injury victims. That says Cairns, underlines the strength of his squad.

The hosts were also shorn of ten key men and fielded as strong a side as was available to coach Peter Wright. However, Wright’s assistant Jonny Else acknowledged that Currie had greater strength in depth.

Else was happy with aspects of Muir’s performance, particularly the fact that his men refused to capitulate and claimed late tries through Rab Cairns, who was playing his final game for the club, and Jordan Edmunds, adding to a first half touchdown by Greg Cannie, with Dougie Steele booting two conversions.

“We found out a lot about ourselves, about the size and depth of our squad. To be fair Currie’s first phase was pretty impressive,” said Else. “Only in the last five or ten minutes did we play the way we wanted to play most weeks – that was a bit frustrating.”