May 23rd
President of Selkirk Rugby Club, George Thomson, was a very proud man at his club's annual dinner last night. Under the leadership of Neil Darling once again, Selkirk RFC celebrated another superb season, finishing fifth in Premier 1 when many tipped them to be relegated. He went on record as saying that this was, in his opinion, the "best team in the club's history." There was a lot to celebrate for sure. They retained the Border League trophy with back-to-back wins following a 56 year wait to get their hands on the oldest league trophy for rugby union in the world. They had three of their players (Fraser Harkness, Lee Jones and Gavin Craig) capped at Club International level for Scotland.  They celebrated winning the Gala 7s trophy for the very first time in 125 years of trying. Yes, there was plenty to be happy about. Rory Aglen was voted Player Of The Year with Lee Jones winning the Player's Player Of The Year trophy.

There was more good news from the Borders as former Gala player Chris Paterson was named Scotland's player of the season by the Scottish Rugby Supporters Club. Paterson has now played 95 times for his country and scored 738 points. Next season he may well reach that magic three figures but he also has his eye on the all-time try scoring record of 24 held by Ian Smith in the 1930s and Tony Stanger of Hawick. Paterson is just three tries short of that total. 

Borderers Chris Paterson, Roddy Grant and Kelly Brown won trophies tonight

Another former Gala player Roddy Grant was voted Scotland Sevens Player of the Season, while Hawick Linden's Craig Smith was chosen as the East League region top player. National 1 Player of the Season went to Langholm's Keith Davidson.

Kelly Brown, who went to school at Earlston, played for Melrose and of course the Border Reivers, picked up Try of the Season and Hawick teenager Stuart Hogg got the nod as Martin Currie Scotland U17 Player of the Season.

Heriot's won the game 21-19 and on balance perhaps deserved to win. Melrose were not at their best but still caused Heriot's problems and Scott Wight's boot kept them in the game with four penalties to make it 12-18 on the hour after Heriot's had crossed for two excellent tries either side of the break.  With the clock ticking away James Lew scored a fantastic try, shrugging off several players to power his way over the line. Wight converted to make it 19-18 before the Heriot's scrum half Graham Wilson slotted a peach of a penalty from the touchline 45 metres out to take the lead. As stoppage time was being played Melrose won a penalty to bring this tense affair to a nail-biting climax.  It was the end of the road for many of the Melrose players including James Lew and Jordan Macey who will be sorely missed for their excellent contributions to their club this season, but 37 year old Richard Higgins vowed to stay on for yet another year saying that he still had some "unfinished business" at the club.

Earlier in the Shield Final Peebles made their debut at the National Stadium with a terrific performance against Premier 1's Glasgow Hawks. In another nip and tuck match the lead changed hands several times with Hawks going in at the break 13-11 down. Dan Boughtwood kicked an excellent long range drop goal in answer to a Hawks try by Peter Jerecevich early on and then put Peebles in front with a penalty before Hawks regained the lead through Gossman's try. Back came Peebles with James Oakes scoring at Murrayfield following a Craig Borthwick break. Boughtwood hit the post before Rainey's penalty for the Glasgow side put them ahead. A second Boughtwood penalty made it 14-13 before a third Hawks try from Jonno Wright came out of the blue to give them the advantage once again. This followed over 25 minutes of Peebles pressure which resulted in nothing on the board. A Gossman penalty handed the Shield to Glasgow Hawks.

In the Plate Duns were big underdogs against the physical and streetwise Aberdeen University who had put out Hawick Linden two weeks ago on the road. Linden had beaten Duns convincingly twice this season so on paper it really was an uphill task. They went down 33-10 but by no means disgraced themselves. Turnover ball and interceptions gave Aberdeen four tries before half time but the second half from Duns was much better and produced their only try of the game from Kevin Aitcheson. Dale Robertson fired over the conversion to add to his first half penalty. For a team which had been relegated three years running and were in freefall mode it was a credit to coaches Peter Gallagher and Allan Paterson for resurrecting the club from the depths and a bright future for the club looks to be on the cards.

Less than 4000 attended the first Finals Day to be played on a Sunday, and most of those attending came from the Borders with Peebles and Melrose bringing several coaches of supporters to the event. The talk is that the Finals Day will revert back to a Saturday next year and April 3rd has been pencilled in for the date by the SRU as they attempt to sort out the problems of fixture congestion next year with the Cup being contested by Premier teams and the Shield by National League sides being proposed.

May 9th
Hawick's season ended with some silverware as they took the Jedforest Sevens title for the first time since 1991. They beat Stew-Mel, Jedforest and Heriot's on their way to the Final where they met Watsonians, who had beaten Selkirk in their semi final by 21-12 to clinch the Kings Of The Sevens for the first time. As Eddie Howe of Watsonians admitted, the game against Selkirk was really their final and while they put up a good fight against Hawick in the last match of the Jed tournament Hawick ran out winners by 26-17. The final table reads: 1 Watsonians 59 points, 2 Hawick 58, 3rd Selkirk 52, 4th Melrose 42.

Wailese Serevi, the Fiji maestro who played for Melrose as a guest this afternoon said in an exclusive interview with Borders Rugby TV that he would like to return to play more rugby in the Borders next year. His short-lived retirement lasted only a few weeks after his "final" appearance at the Melrose Sevens.

May 8th
Fraser Harkness scooped the Borders Player Of The Season Award last night at the first Borders Rugby Awards event at The Tait Hall, Kelso. In front of a sell-out crowd where 15 of the 17 clubs locally were represented Hawick YM picked up the Scottish Hydro Electric Trophy for "Most Successful Borders Team of the Season".

Langholm were also celebrating after winning a cash award of £1000 to go towards grassroots rugby at the club when all 17 Borders clubs were put into a hat in a special draw. As the teams were eliminated one by one the tension mounted wioth only Hawick YM and Langholm left.  Radio Borders commentator from Hawick Stuart McCulloch had the job of choosing the penultimate team to go out of the draw and the sealed envelope he chose contained the name of YM.  The draw proved to be very popular with money going into Borders Rugby to help youngsters.

McCulloch ended the evening with a typically controversial and forthright speech. Earlier Gala and Scotland three-quarter John Frame along with host Gary Parker put their equally strong points across (albeit in a different manner!) and a return of the South Of Scotland team was called for.  Almost 40 awards were dished out to players and teams from the Borders and a four figure sum was raised for the Hearts and Heroes Challenge which takes place next Saturday from St Mary's Loch to Melrose.