Borderers’ magnificent seven

Melrose

MELROSE fought back from 11-0 down to defeat Stirling to reach the BT Cup final for a second successive year. County came out all guns blazing in the semifinal at the Greenyards and early on looked like causing a shock, but Melrose scored seven tries to prevail. They will face Ayr in the final at BT Murrayfield on April 22.

The visitors opened the scoring after two minutes thanks to winger Logan Trotter, who made his Scotland Under-20 debut last week.

The conversion was missed but in the fifth minute County extended their lead to 8-0 thanks to a long-range penalty by Ross Thomson. County were dealt a blow in the 10th minute when their skipper Jonny Hope was forced from the field. He was replaced by Logan Bonar.

However, it did not seem to upset the visitors’ flow and they went 11-0 up in the 18th minute when Thomson kicked his second penalty.

Melrose sprang into life in the second quarter.

Full-back Fraser Thomson burst through a gap and, with the County defence stretched, fed inside to captain Grant Runciman who passed to winger Sam Pecqueur to score. Baggott converted.

Nine minutes before the interval the hosts went ahead when a pass by Aaron Welsh opened things up out wide. He passed to Runciman who gave the scoring pass to Thomson.

Before the interval, try number three came for the Borderers, a superb lineout move that ended with hooker Russell Anderson goingover. Baggottconverted to give them a 19-11 lead.

It was no surprise when the hosts bagged try number four in the 48th minute, with Edinburgh pro Nick Beavon burrowing his way over, Baggott again converting.

With 20 minutes left County got a converted try through second-row Adam Sinclair but minutes later Melrose increased the gap to 11 points with a Baggott penalty. With 12 minutes left, Beavon went over for his second try. Baggott converted and it was 36-18.

The home side had late scores from Nyle Godsmark and Ruairidh Knott. ALI Bain ran in two tries as Portobello reached the BT Bowl final with a 17-11 win away to Moray in the last four. The Edinburgh side went behind early on to a penalty by the hosts, but they were soon 7-3 up thanks to a converted try by Hamish Munro.

That seemed to give the visitors a lot of confidence and the BT East Two side moved 12-3 ahead thanks to the man who just cannot scoring tries.

It was Bain’s 25th of a fruitful campaign and when he added number 26, his team were 17-3 up and seemingly in control.

However, Moray are a tough nut to crack at home though and were not about to wilt, hitting back with a try and a penalty that made half-time scoreline the 17-11.

During the second 40 minutes, Portobello had to put in a big defensive shift to keep Moray away from the try line, but they managed to do that and there were big celebrations at the end.

In the other semi-final, Blairgowrie claimed a dramatic 18-17 win at home to Strathendrick.

It was nip and tuck for most of the afternoon and it looked like they were going to be hard to separate.

Both sets of players gave it everything, but late on Blairgowrie managed to gain the edge.