Ayr and County facing testing games as big day at Murrayfield looms large

National Youth under-18 Cup finalists, Ayr and Stirling County, will face testing opposition this weekend ahead of their title-deciding match on the international pitch at BT Murrayfield a week on Sunday.

Ayr will take on George Watson’s College at Millbrae, while the defending champions Stirling County will face Stewart’s-melville College at Inverleith with a 10:30am kickoff, two matches that will test the youth Cup contenders and which, moreover, could do much to demonstrate the value of cross-schools/club competition.

Such matches are infrequent but if clubs and schools want to free themselves from the ties of history then more of these fixtures should take place. Ultimately, it is about players being exposed to higher levels of rugby on a regular basis; traditional fixtures do not answer this need.

But arranging matches in the second half of the season is not as easy as it might seem. In the January-february period, a combination of winter weather, be it frost or flooding, prelim exams and the different timing and lengths of halfterms throughout the country all mitigate against any sort of games being played, far less elite matches between the best clubs and the best schools.

Last weekend, for instance, Stirling were unable to play their Caledonia Cup quarterfinal match against Gordonstoun because the Morayshire school were on half-term and, in the event, County had to content themselves with what their under-18 head coach, Matt Mcgrandles, termed “a round-robin” with Perthshire.

Ayrusedacomfortablewinin their West Cup match against Cambuslang to keep their players focused, but the Millbrae youngsters will be challenged to a much greater degree on Saturday by a Watson’s side even without seven of their best players away at Scotland under-17 and under-18 camps.

Meanwhile, Boroughmuir under-18s travelled to the Borders to play Kelso Quins, emerging winners by 33-24 thanks to a late surge that brought four tries in the last 15 minutes. Boroughmuir tries were scored by Lewis Reid, Ross Hunter, Lennox Baselala, Michael Gray and Fin Devine, four of them converted by Ethan Mcvicker.

“Our boys kept playing and fought hard all game. Even after being 24-7 we down came back strongly,” said Scott Anderson, the Boroughmuir under-18 head coach.

The under-18 match between Earlston High School/melrose Wasps and Hawick PSA was postponed.