​Southern Knights targeting first back-to-back wins in rugby’s Fosroc Super Series Sprint

​Saturday’s 34-17 victory at home at Melrose’s Greenyards to Edinburgh’s Boroughmuir Bears was their first sprint win for just short of two years, their only prior one having been by 19-14 at home to fellow capital side Heriot’s in June 2022.

Knights are now looking to build on that long-awaited return to winning ways at home to the competition’s other Edinburgh outfit, Watsonians, this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 5pm.

The Borderers go into that third fixture of the campaign as one of five teams on five points, with their visitors at the bottom of the table, having lost both their games so far, by 46-7 away to table-toppers Ayrshire Bulls last Friday and by 39-21 at Heriot’s the previous Saturday.

Bottom of the table is where Knights have ended up at the end of both prior sprint campaigns, on one point with Kelso rugby legend Alan Tait in charge last year and without any with Melrose’s Bruce Ruthven as head coach the year before, so they’re determined to avoid the competition’s wooden spoon at the third and final time of asking.

They’ve got home advantage for the third game on the trot and attack coach Scott Wight is hoping they can make the most of it to rack up their first back-to-back sprint successes to date, saying: “Watsonians have generally been one of the stronger teams in the league and they always recruit pretty well.

“They’ll be desperate to get off zero points, but it’s a great opportunity for us to have a real good crack at them.

“Somebody’s going to get a backlash at some point but hopefully it’s not us at the weekend.

“They’ve got a lot of good players in their squad.

“They’re potentially short of confidence, having lost two games, so we’ve got to be on the money from the start, and if we manage to start well, we can hopefully score a few early points, but they’re always close games against Watsonians and quite physical so it’s really important that our forwards front up.

“Saturday’s game follows on from the 103rd young kids’ Crichton Cup at Melrose this week, so hopefully there’ll be a bit of a buzz about the place.

“We’re really looking forward to it and it always helps coming off the back of a win.

“There’s a good buzz in the camp and the boys are desperate to do well with this being their last-ever involvement in the Super6.

“It’d be really nice to pick up another win as we’ve got a week off afterwards.”

Right-winger Finn Douglas, No 8 Marcus Rhodes, replacement scrum-half Hector Patterson and lock Angus Runciman scored tries for the hosts, skippered by full-back Gregor McNeish, at the weekend, with inside centre Callum Grieve converting all four and also kicking two penalties.

Left-winger Rowan Stewart, blindside flanker Bertie Taylor and inside centre Scott Robeson, Bears’ captain, touched down for head coach Graham Shiel’s visitors, with fly-half George Paul adding one conversion.

Saturday’s match being part of a club-of-origin round, it will see Knights’ players wearing former teams’ socks.