Kelso’s Ross Ford reaches a magnificent milestone for Scotland



Ross Ford made his debut for Scotland in 2004 and 12 years later, at the age of 32, he today reached the 100 mark for his country – a remarkable achievement. Although the match against Australia ended in defeat at 23-22, the Scots led for 77 minutes of the game and were only overtaken in the last three minutes when they conceded a try under the posts. If Greig Laidlaw’s second half conversion of Jonny Gray’s try had not hit the posts we would be celebrating a one point win, but that’s rugby, and the famous line about ‘fine margins’ was never more apt than this afternoon at the National Stadium.

Huw Jones scored two tries for Scotland on his first match at BT Murrayfield as the Scots won the try count 3-2 and it was a case of deja-vu as for the second time in as many games, Scotland lost out by a single point to a late score.  But Ross will no doubt be adding another cap next Saturday against Argentina as he chases Sean Lamont’s total of 105 and fellow-Borderer Chris Paterson’s all-time record of 109 which he should reach in the summer if he stays fit, and he could well send that record far beyond that with a few good years left in him.

In the Booker Border League Peebles won at Mansfield Park for the second time in four years as they surprisingly beat Hawick 25-19 to cause a bit of an upset. In the only other match locally played this weekend at senior level, Langholm scored an excellent victory at Gala YM 32-12 in East League 2, while in the Border Cup there was a win for Gala A against Selkirk A 62-0.