O’riordan eager to press on with recruitment drive as Accies capture title

Edinburgh Accies head coach Derek O’riordan will waste no time this week in strengthening his squad for the 201819 BT Premiership campaign after the capital club won the BT National League Division One title at the weekend.

A 52-7 victory over Selkirk on Saturday helped them pip Jed-forest to the top spot.

Both Accies and Jed went into the final day fixtures on 99 points and both went on to record bonus-point victories at Philiphaugh and Dundee HSFP respectively.

That put them on 104 points after 22 fixtures with the Raeburn Place men finishing in top spot thanks to their superior points difference.

O’riordan is clear that his side will not just be looking to make up the numbers in the top flight after the summer.

“With a few new faces we are really looking forward to getting out there next season and

0 Robin Snape: Early try. making our mark,” he said. “With no relegation, the pressure is off, and hopefully that will make it a really exciting, attacking league.

“We’ve been speaking to players since February, but guys were understandably reluctanttocommituntiltheyknew which division we were going to be playing in because they want to be competing at the highest level.

“Now that we have that clarified we can pull the trigger on some of our recruitment.” On Saturday at Selkirk, early converted tries by Robin Snape and Lawrie Seydak settled any Accies nerves and when hooker Callum Black went over for their third to make it 19-0 it was all oneway traffic. The all-important bonus-point try came before half-time and at 26-0 Accies were well in charge.

Upindundee,jedweredoing all they could with a 41-29 win, but it was not enough.

After finishing second they will now play Glasgow Hawks in a promotion/relegation play-off match on 5 May.

Meanwhile, Dumfries Saints’ head coach Rudi Urbach praised his side for taking risks as they caused a shock to defeat Kelso 30-17 and lift the BT National League Cup. At Hawthornden in Midlothian they came out on top and the South African said: “It is a high-risk, highreward approach that we have and sometimes it doesn’t go according to plan, but that’s rugby.

“It is the right way to play the game, and the more we work at it the more accurate we will get.”

Kelso led early on, but when captain Jack Steele’s converted try made it 15-7 to the Saints they never looked back.