Marr 10
Melrose 24
ROB CHRYSTIE praised his Melrose team’s professionalism after they ground out a hard-earned victory over Marr in muddy conditions at Fullarton Park. The same two teams had met at the same venue in the league last Saturday, and on that occasion the Borderers had been too strong for the Premiership strugglers, running out 0-43 winners – however, on this occasion, the visitors faced a far sterner test.
“It was bloody tough – in terms of the conditions and the opposition,” said Chrystie. “To be fair to Marr, they were a lot better this week. They’d taken on board the lessons from last week and they really dug in to make us work for everything we got.”
“I’m pretty pleased with the way our boys approached the challenge. To play the same team twice in a week is tough, especially after getting a pretty big win last weekend, but they didn’t let that effect the way they approached the game. We showed loads of effort and grunt to get the job done.”
Melrose took an early lead through a Jason Baggott try, which was converted by Craig Jackson; and the visitors doubled their account with a penalty try on 32 minutes, but Marr bounced straight back with an unconverted try from Scott Bickerstaff to make 5-14 at the break.
A James Head try, converted by Baggott, put Melrose back in the driving seat at the start of the second half; but despite long periods of pressure during that second period they could not break their opponents’ resistance, and eventually had to make do with a Baggott penalty.
Marr kept plugging away and after several minutes of possession they scored a well-deserved consolation try through loose-head prop Greg Jackson with six minutes to go.
“It’s back to the Greenyards for the first time on over a month next week to take on Heriot’s in the league. The boys are looking forward to it. They are in pretty good shape physically and mentally at the moment,” concluded Chrystie.
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