RUGBY: PLAY- OFF FINAL PREVIEW
Departing Ayr coach’s last game
Here we are at the sharp end. Again.
In the long hike since last August, we find ourselves after nine months of BT Premiership rugby – well, back where we were this time last April.
On Saturday Scotland’s two top clubs will battle it out for the BT Premiership trophy and it would be brave ( or very foolish) to predict a result.
Form of course is a factor but in games between Ayr and Melrose there has always been an indefinable element which defies analysis and which tends to throw form out of the window.
Home advantage? Look at the thumpings doled out to Ayr at Millbrae then the turnaround at the Greenyards shortly afterwards when Ayr have triumphed.
Personnel? Both sides a stacked with high quality players who know each other’s games so well and have of course been team mates in the Club International XV.
When you have opponents like full backs Grant Anderson and Fraser Thomson and Melrose’s lock Angus Runciman and Rob McAlpine, you stop speculating – or at least you should.
Coaching? You could delve a long way into the club game in Scotland and still fail to unearth a couple of coaches with the quality of Callum Forrester and Rob Chrystie, and you only have to look at the honours the clubs have amassed to see why they are held in such high regard by their peers.
Strengths and discipline? Anyone who was at Myreside for the BT Cup semi- final on Saturday will tell you that the final stages of Melrose’s 17- 10 win was like watching an action replay of the Ayr defence in the Premiersip Trophy semi- final against Currie, so you’d look in vain for weakness there.
So, it comes down to intangibles and to an extent injuries.
A coach of my acquaintance who has gone on to carve an excellent reputation in the professional game lived by the dictum that were no such things as lucky coaches.
“Like everything else, you make your own luck” he maintained “and the only element which you cannot really control is injuries so I tend not consider that luck, bad or otherwise.”
The intangibles are exactly that. Intangible.
Will the fact that Melrose still have a chance of silverware even if they lose on Saturday be a cushion or is going to the last chance saloon something which will prey on the collective Ayr mind?
So where exactly are we going into the match which will decide whether Ayr will retain the trophy they won in such dramatic fashion at the Greenyards last season or whether Melrose will make it the first leg of a double after they reached the BT Cup Final with that win over Watsonian?
For Ayr coach Calum Forrester this will be an emotional occasion as he takes charge of the side for the last time but he chose to speak only of the game ahead.
“There are times when the pack has been outstanding this season and the performance against Currie to get to the final has made me really proud of the effort we have put in.
“We won the title at the Greenyards last season and we have already beaten Melrose on their home patch this season but that counts for nothing when we run out on Saturtday.
“It will undoubtedly come down to fine margins but we now feel that we are in a good place for one last game to finish off our season.”