Clubs eye four British and Irish Cup spots to help keep season alive

A NEW target may be emerging for Premier One clubs no longer in the race for the title in the shape of a lobby for more places in next season's British and Irish Cup.

The competition has been a strange hybrid of teams from England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland this year, and on the surface has not been hugely successful for Scottish teams with the Gael Force side using over 60 fringe pros and academy players so far and still to win a game, and Heriot's also winless while Ayr have won two matches but failed to qualify for the knock-out stages.

Ayr's game with Currie scheduled for this afternoon is postponed to next month as Kenny Murray's men are on the road to Cardiff to complete their British and Irish Cup involvement, but his team's experience – beating Birmingham and Rotherham and only losing to a last-minute conversion last week, which brought a first loss at Millbrae in nearly two years – has played a part in pushing the rest of the top tier clubs to ask for a slice of the action.

The Scotsman understands Premier One clubs have asked for four spots in the competition next season and Ian Rankin, the director of rugby at Dundee admitted that had certainly perked up his side, now in fourth place, as they prepare to take on a Glasgow Hawks side this afternoon also eyeing a top four finish.

"The league title is between Currie and Ayr now," he said, "but potentially having something below that to play for definitely brings an edge to the end of the season for those of us just below them.

"Even if it's only a bit of rumour at the moment it's been enough for our players to be talking about it and I've certainly used it this week as an added motivation. I don't know whether it will happen. It is being talked about and that's all we can say at the moment.

"But we want to put ourselves in a position that if it did come about we'd be able to take advantage of it. I have spoken to the guys at Ayr and their experiences have been very positive.

"I think we were all a bit sceptical of it at the start of the season and wondered what might come out of it and while it has been hard for the Scottish teams the stuff coming back has been very positive.

"Heriot's struggled early on but their result down in Bristol last week was unbelievable. They lost but only narrowly to a professional club that has the same sort of hinterland as Edinburgh, and unfortunately I think that game got totally lost by all the attention on the Scotland defeat in Italy."

In terms of providing motivation as the season nears its final leg, Rankin believes the potential to be part of a cross-border tournament is enticing.

"When it comes to this point in the season it can be hard to keep players motivated, especially when, fortunately, you have managed to get yourselves clear of the relegation battle. That is now becoming pretty serious with as many as six clubs involved down there.

"We always set ourselves the target on coming back up into the league to finish in the top four and now we may have a little extra incentive to finish in there. But that just makes the magnitude of this game with the Hawks pretty big.

"They have quite a number of games in hand so they're closer than it might look, and Melrose have been struggling a bit since we got out of the winter freeze, so if we can keep our good run going who knows what might wait for us next season."