Carson’s staying positive despite sixth spot

Highland Rugby Club’s head coach Davie Carson feels turning fine margins in his side’s favour will be key to climbing National 1 next season.

The Inverness outfit ended the campaign in sixth place, missing out on fifth due to a finalday 57-14 loss to Biggar.

Although Highland went on to win 12 of their 22 games, Carson felt some damaging earlyseason defeats left his side with too much to do in the race for promotion.

Carson said: “It’s probably where we are, as a team and squad. A lot of younger and inexperienced guys came in this season. We lost four out of the pack for the whole of the season, who we had for the last four or five years. There were new guys that came in, and it was always going to take them time to bed in and get them used to the speed of National 1 rugby, and the way we play the game.

“We were probably disappointed with two or three results at the most, where we felt we let ourselves down.

“Other times we got beat, we just had to hold our hands up.

“We took these ones on the chin, but there were three that hurt. We will just make sure that doesn’t happen again next year.”

Carson has freshened up his side in the final stages of the season, with a number of players from Highland’s Caledonia 2 North titlewinning side being handed their chance.

The Highland head coach feels the Canal Park outfit are in a healthy position.

He said: “Club-wise, the seconds won their league again, while the thirds completed all their fixtures in the first time we have had a third team out for 10 or 15 years.

“There were some Saturdays when we had 66 senior players playing rugby for Highland, which is fantastic. It’s all got to be put down as a positive season.”