SELKIRK emerged victorious over Melrose under the Netherdale floodlights on Monday night to lift the Border League trophy for the first time since 2010.
A large crowd braved the wet conditions to watch the showpiece event and they weren’t disappointed.
Zen Szwagrzak was a surprise inclusion in the Selkirk team having played for Poland against Belgium 24 hours earlier.
The Premiership side opened the scoring against their National One opponents in the sixth minute when Aaron McColm burst through a gap in the Melrose defence to touch down between the posts leaving a simple conversion from Craig Jackson against his former club.
Melrose responded with a long-range penalty from captain David Colvine.
But Selkirk added to their lead moments later with a piece of individual brilliance from Ryan Cottrell.
After collecting a pass on the left wing, he delicately kicked into the Melrose 22 and demonstrated tremendous pace and footballing skill to dribble over the whitewash and touch down. The conversion went wide of the target.
The Souters continued to dominate territory up to the break but the Melrose defence held firm leaving the half-time score 12-3 in favour of Selkirk.
Another Colvine penalty on 55 minutes reduced the deficit to six points.
Selkirk thought they had wrapped things up when youngster Finlay Wheelans touched down but he was adjudged to have knocked on and the score was disallowed.
So it was a nervous finish to the game for Selkirk fans knowing that a converted try from Melrose would give them the lead.
And that almost happened with a 20m rolling maul which ended with a penalty and a yellow card for Selkirk’s Scott McClymont.
But the lineout did not go to plan and the Souters held on for a hard-fought 12-6 victory and the coveted Border League title, the seventh in the club's history.
After the final whistle Selkirk co-captain Luke Pettie told Borders Rugby TV: “A few weeks ago we wouldn’t have got the bounce of the ball and we’d have been on the receiving end of a defeat. But credit to the boys. They stuck in to the 80th minute.
“It’s massive. There are a couple of guys in there who are moving on so we said that at half time to reward them.
“We speak about the negative stuff week in, week out but we rewarded them and it wasn’t anything pretty. I don’t know if it was ever going to be, but we are happy.
“Credit to Melrose. It doesn’t matter where Melrose play they are always going to be tough. They have a good young bunch of boys.”
Melrose head coach Bert Grigg said: “I told you it was going to be high scoring. I maybe got that bit wrong, but it was physical. It was probably your classic derby.
“We let that early score in and that probably killed our momentum for a little bit.
“But we talked about it at half time and I know it means very little but we won that second half which proved we can compete.
“But it was just those little things that let us down on the night.”
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