STEWART’S Melville put in a good performance at Myreside last night to defeat Watsonians and see the latter’s RBS National League promotion bid falter further with a fourth straight loss.


Watsonians took a 10-5 lead into the break, their points coming through a try by Ross Aitken after he followed up a clever Jack Ferguson kick and five points from the boot of Brian Walls.

Stewart’s Melville, who had a lot of possession in the first 40 minutes, scored a try through Donald Sangster.

After the interval two Roddy Mackenzie tries and a late one from Richard Borthwick saw Stewart’s Melville home 24-10.

Today league leaders Hawick travel to Hillhead/Jordanhill looking to record their seventh league win in a row since they drew with fellow title chasers Glasgow Hawks back in October.

Last week they ran up 51 points in defeating local rivals Hawick YM in the RBS Border Regional Cup while in their last league outing a fortnight ago they put 42 points past Kelso. When these two sides met at Mansfield Park back in September, the Greens came out on top 31-14 while today Hillhead/Jordanhill will be looking to bounce back from a shock home defeat to Biggar two weeks ago.

In the other match today eighth place Hamilton could do with a win over Selkirk at Laigh Bent to edge them even further away from the bottom two. Currently they are 11 points clear of Jed and eight points above Biggar, but could do with a couple more wins to make sure of their place in the division for 2013/14. Selkirk travel on a high having won the RBS Border Regional Cup last Friday and they are aiming to keep hold of fourth spot. Both of these matches kick-off at 12.30pm.

• Glasgow Hawks welcome Ayr to Old Anniesland for a noon showdown today looking to cause an upset and win the RBS West Regional Cup. The home side have had a great 
season in the RBS National League and the cup, but they will have to put in their best showing of the campaign to see off top- flight title chasers Ayr. For Ayr winger Kerr Gossman misses out on a return to his former club through injury and Ross Curle is at stand-off with Finn Russell on Glasgow Warriors duty.

This article was posted on 9-Feb-2013, 07:27 by Hugh Barrow.