Skelly Cup an early festive gift for triple-header victors Hawick

The Greens followed up last week’s 20-20 home draw against Selkirk with a 22-12 victory away to Jed-Forest to claim their first win of the campaign, though they were denied a bonus point by a dogged second-half display by their hosts.

Saturday’s match at Jedburgh’s Riverside Park was a triple-header, also counting for the Border League and deciding which of the sides’ trophy cabinets will play host to the Skelly Cup for the next year.

That cup is usually contested on Boxing Day but was played out almost four months early this time round in a bid to avert post-festive season fixture congestion, earning the visitors a welcome early Yuletide gift.

The Greens’ win also puts them in pole position in their Border League pool with six points from two games, and next Saturday’s Selkirk-Jed-Forest double-header derby at the former’s Philiphaugh home ground will determine how that group ends up.

Hawick’s try-scorers were Hector Patterson at the double and Andrew Mitchell, with Kirk Ford adding a penalty and a conversion and Bailey Donaldson one of the latter.

Scoring tries for Jed were Paulo Ferreira and Clark Skeldon, with Dom Buckley contributing a conversion.

All Hawick's scores came in the first half and all Jed’s followed after the interval.

Hawick, with six points from two games, now sit third in the premiership – behind table-toppers Edinburgh Academical and second-placed Currie Chieftains, both on ten points – ahead of a visit from Musselburgh this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm.

Their hosts – having kicked off with back-to-back defeats starting with a 52-12 loss at Currie a week ago on Saturday – are yet to pick up their first points of the season.

Hawick captain Matt Carryer – sin-binned late on, along with Callum Renwick, to leave his side with only 13 players on the pitch – was delighted with Saturday’s win, telling Borders Rugby TV: “We wanted a bit of a reaction after last week.

“We were disappointed with starting against Selkirk and finishing with a draw, but it’s never easy coming to the Riverside – no matter what the team look like, Jed are always a good, stuffy side – so it was definitely good to pick up four points.

“Being in the top four was a target for us last year as well, but I’d say we want a home semi-final this time. We’ll take top four at the least, though.

“We could have done with a home win last week but we’ll take a draw and a win to start the season, so we’ll hopefully kick on now and look to push on.”

Carryer was also encouraged by the maturity on display among the Greens’ younger players, adding: “We’ve got an extremely young team. I think the average age is 22 or 23, but it makes it quite easy when the under-18s are coming out with the talent we’ve got – the likes of Connor Sutherland and Hector Patterson.

“They’ve slotted in no bother. We’ve got a good squad at Hawick, so it all comes together quite nicely.”

His team might be winless two games into the new premiership season, but Jed-Forest’s Gregor Young says he’s already seeing cause for optimism that they can improve on last term’s eighth-placed finish.

Young is confident the Jedburgh side can improve on their return of five wins from 18 games last time round and he’s hoping their fortunes pick up away to Selkirk this coming weekend.

“We were obviously disappointed with the first half. We just didn’t really turn up,” he told Borders Rugby TV after Saturday’s defeat.

“The second half we could take as a win. We probably left a few tries still on the field there, but I’d say it was a better performance than last week and at least we were in the game this week so there’s plenty to take out of it.

“We need to get better with our structure because we kind of failed at it a few times with a few loose passes missing the wrong men out, but there are things to build on.

“We were happier with our second-half performance but obviously we got off to a slow start.

“We’d definitely take confidence from how we’ve been performing.

“Last season, we just weren’t at the races, so hopefully we can do better than that, but we’ve got to see what Currie Chieftains are like and Hawick are like and I would say that they’re definitely two top-four sides anyway.

“We’ll just move on to next week and see what Selkirk bring.

“It’s just a case of building character again and building for the future.

“We want to get results and we want this team to do that, but we need to look to the future as well and hopefully young guys will come through. It’s just about building character and trying to move forward.

“There’s a good buzz about the club, and that’s what we want to happen, but you’ve got to get results and hopefully we’ll get a few wins this season. It’s going to be hard but definitely we need to stay in the premiership.”