Young guns shoot down dire Rose

Heriot's FP 61 Melrose 14 There comes a time in every gunslinger's life when someone younger, faster, and tougher comes on the scene and takes the girl, the well, the horse, and the forty head of cattle. In rugby the parallel is that someone comes along who probably isn't as tough as you were in your prime, but the fearsome runs you make into them don't have the same effect any more, and they don't show you any respect.

And so it was with Melrose's former greats of the once feared Robbie Brown and Tam Weir up front, and former internationalists Graham Shiel and Craig Joiner in the back division, all four of whom played well but looked to be getting fragile up against some really quick young bright stars in the Heriot's side.

Frankly it was sad to see Melrose going through the kind of phase which means some of their older blokes aren't cutting the mustard, while the younger ones don't have the experience. All of which exposed them as a pretty ordinary side, bereft of pace and struggling for ideas.

Gary Parker cut a lonely figure on the South terrace of Goldenacre, using his mobile phone more often than would seem necessary when watching a match while banned from coaching.

By contrast, Heriot's were all hustle, bustle and purpose. In Tammas McVie they had a big strong back row man who frequently broke the gain line to go on blazing runs, I like the way scraggy second row Rab Barrie is playing, Craig Harrison bulldozed to great effect, and behind the scrum Matt Dey, Hugh Gilmour, Mark Teague, and Gregor Lawson could all break the line. Aided and abetted early on by Gordon Ross who seemed to have acres of time, the Heriot's back division was simply too full of young guns who made the one time top guns look slow out of the holster.

They had romped over for three tries before the break - Gregor Lawson after lead up work from McVie, Grant Talac through some innocuous tackling for the second, and Craig Harrison with the softest of pick-up tries going left from a scrum. Goldenacre will never have seen anything like it.

With the Melrose pack ineffective in the extreme, despite Jamie Henderson and Tam Weir trying to buck the trend for them, Heriot's had it all their own way barring lapses in concentration. Harrison had his second try after a fantastic romp from McVie while Heriot's were down to 14 men, only for Callum Macrae, once again a Melrose success in the centre, to slice through against them.

Open side wing forward Jon White followed soon after when a teasing Ross up-and-under was chased by Teague and fumbled by the Melrose defence, while one of the sweetest arose as Gregor Lawson erupted into the line. This made his grandfather, one WP McLaren sitting one along from me, smile. "Did any of you see who scored that?" he asked. A Welch try followed, then Alec Aarvold sliced through. It was quiet in the press box. "Did any of you see who gave the scoring pass?" he asked. It was Gregor.

Lawson scored his hat-trick try, while Jamie Henderson responded at the other end, and we were left to chew on the fact that Melrose, a great Borders name, had let nine tries go past them.

Perhaps losing two strikes against the head dispirited them, maybe the old guys are past it and the young guns aren't ready, they were comprehensively outplayed, but I suspect they think the world is against them. There can be no complaints against referee Rob Dixon, and maybe Melrose have to examine how the likes of Ian Cornwall gets three yellow cards in a season which sets him up for a ban.

So Melrose are left with no option but to pull their socks up and prove this was an aberration. Because if this is normality there is something wrong with Melrose rugby. They were truly awful.

Heriot's FP G Lawson; M Teague, H Gilmour, M Dey, A Aarvold; G Ross (A Monro 60 mins), R Lawson; M Welch, J Taylor (S Mustard 71mins) G Talac (G Cross 71 mins), R Barrie, J Gordon, T McVie, C Harrison (E Caesar 57mins), J White.

Melrose J Blackwood; A Clark (C McCrumm 74mins), C Macrae, C Joiner, C Young, G Shiel (S Shiel 70mins), S Ruthven; I Cornwall, I McCall (I Exmoor 62 mins), R Robertson (S Aitken 62mins), R Brown, J Henderson, K Brown, T Weir, J Dalziel.

Referee R Dixon (Madras FP).

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