Melrose 45

Marr 14

ALASDAIR REID @ The Greenyards

A COMFORTABLE win for Melrose, but by a margin that probably flattered them at the end. They were certainly worth the victory, but Marr put up a noble fight and the two teams were separated by just seven points at the start of the final quarter.

After that, though, Melrose pulled away powerfully. There was a new intensity in their tackling and a new crispness in attack. Marr fell away badly at the finish as the competitiveness they had shown in the early stages drifted out of the game. They threw themselves a lifeline in the relegation fight when they beat Accies last weekend, but their prospects now look bleak.

“I don’t think it’s over mathematically just yet,” said Stephen Adair, the Marr forwards coach. “But we’ll have to win every game and hope a few other results go our way. That’s not the position you want to be in because you want to be in control. We just let things slip away today and gave away a lot of soft penalties later on.”

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Melrose coach Scott Wight admitted to some relief at the end. “We needed that,” he said. “It was one of those games where it just took time to bang the door down. We knew they would be stuffy after their result last week. That’s a huge result in the context of the league table given where we’ve been recently.”

Grey skies had greeted the teams at The Greenyards on a still, but chilly day. And it would be pushing iit to say that the opening exchanges did much to brighten things either. Both teams showed intent as they tried to move the ball through the hands, but those hands let them down all too often and turnovers were frequent.

It fell to Melrose No 8 Ruaridh Lindsay to break the deadlock  with a smart try in the ninth minute. The Borderers had muscled their way upfield to establish a position near the Marr 22, and when the ball came back it was carried on with an impressive burst of pace by Allan Ferrie. The lock’s break created the opening for Lindsey, who duly cantered home from about 15 metres out, giving Keiran Clark an easy conversion.

Ten minutes later, Melrose doubled their total. It started with a penalty inside their own half which led to a line-out on the left side near the Marr 22. With possession  resecured and play moving right, another gaping hole opened up in front of Ferrie. This time the lock needed no support and he sprinted through to score.

Marr still enjoyed a decent amount of possession, but they produced an indecent number of errors on the ball. As a result, they were pinned down in their own half for lengthy spells, although Melrose deserved credit for piling the pressure on to create that situation.

After Allan Ferrie’s hefty contribution to Melrose’s scoreline, his brother Will clearly decided to bring his presence to bear as well. Unfortunately, his contribution to the narrative was rather less honourable, for when the prop was spotted throwing a punch at a Marr opponent he was sent to the sin-bin to cool off for 10 minutes. Yet even as they were reduced to 14 men, Melrose continued to dominate affairs and looked likely to sustain no damage on the scoreboard until Ferrie’s return.

Yet just when the home side thought they had got away with it, they conceded their first points to a try by Marr lock Cameron Young. Having failed to make inroads by moving the ball wide, the Ayrshiremen changed their approach and drove hard and low through a series of rucks near the Melrose line. Little by little, inch by inch, they edged their way forward, and when Melrose ran out of resistance, Young thrust himself over for the score, with stand-off Colin Sturgeon adding the extras.

The try enlivened Marr and they enjoyed their best passage of the game, up to that point at least, in the minutes leading up to half time.

Melrose replaced both props at the break and the revamped front-row made its presence felt by pushing Marr off their own ball at the first scrum of the second half. That earned them a strong position near the line and a third try looked likely as they went through their phases. However, a careless knock-on at the critical moment cost them the chance and Marr were able to clear their lines.

Yet Melrose were clearly in the mood by now and they continued to pile on the pressure. When a clearance kick by Marr flew out on the full, Melrose had a line-out just outside their opponents’ 22 and the scent of blood in their nostrils. Again, they regathered efficiently; again the ball found its way into the hands of Allan Ferrie, and again the powerful lock ploughed through for a try.

Clark’s conversion put Melrose 21-7 ahead and there was a strong feeling that one more home score would kill the game as a contest with 25 minutes left. But it was the men from Troon who breathed new life into it instead, as they worked their way upfield and sent flanker Callum Steel over for their second try. Sturgeon’s conversion brought the gap back to seven points.

Melrose levered it open to 10 points a few minutes later when Clark clipped over a penalty from around 30 metres after Marr were penalised for a failure to release. Again, though, Melrose made things hard for themselves as Struan Hutchison collected their second yellow-card of the match, this time for leading with a forearm.

But Melrose girded themselves. There was a new bite in their tackles and they drove the Marr runners back on their heels with real venom. Another Allan Ferrie break took them deep into Marr territory and swift passing across the middle oof the pitch opened the door for centre Roly Brett to charge through and collect their fourth try.

As the minutes ticked away, Marr’s bad day at the office became truly miserable when winger Jake Jacobson tackled a Melrose player off the ball, earning a yellow-card for himself and a penalty try against his team.

Teams –

Melrose: Melrose: M Gabe; K Clark, C Goldsbrough, R Brett, D Mulcahy; L Townsend, B Colvine; W Ferrie, L Kirk, Z Swarzagak, A Ferrie, A Runciman ©, E Ruthven, F Sinclair, R Lindsay. Subs: B White, J Dobie, A Weir,, J Wilks, C Fairbairn, D Crawford, S Hutchinson.

Marr: C Inglis; L Jarvie, S Bickerstaff; A Bryden, J Jacobson; C Sturgeon, G Baird ©; B Sweet, B Jardine, C Miller, A Orr, C Young, J Braddock, C Steele, B Johnston. Subs: G Dick, R Sutterfield, A King, A Bowler, E McAra, J Scott, A Purewal.

Referee: J Smith

Scorers –

Melrose:  Tries: Lindsay, A Ferrie 2, Brett, Penalty Try, Clark; Cons: Clark 4; Pens: Clark.

Marr: Tries: Young, Steel; Cons: Sturgeon 2

Scoring sequence (Melrose first): 5-0; 7-0; 12-0; 14-0; 14-5; 14-7 (h-t) 19-7; 21-7; 21-12; 21-14; 24-14; 29-14; 31-14; 36-14; 38-14; 43-14; 45-14.

Yellow cards –

Melrose: W Ferrie (23 mins), Hutchison (68 mins)

Marr: Jacobson (75 mins)

Man-of-the-Match: Even without his tries and his try assists, Allan Ferrie would have been the standout player for his all-action performance in the loose and his commanding work in the line-out. The scores and assists just make it a lot easier to give him the accolade.

Talking point: What happened to Marr near the end? They were well in the contest for 60 minutes and although they were never in front they kept nipping at Melrose’s heels. But they fell out of the game in the final quarter and it looks as if they may soon be falling out of the Arnold Clark Premiership as well.