Melrose 32 - 23 Currie: Melrose hold tight to win

After one round Currie have lost as many matches as they did in the entire league campaign last season. This was a cracking game of rugby with the teams sharing eight tries as they took advantage of the warm, sunny conditions that were only spoilt by a tricky, swirling wind.

At the end of a ding-dong match in which the lead changed hands at least four times the two teams could only be split by a Scott Wight penalty. Since the Melrose fly-half also fluffed three other goal attempts, hitting the bar twice, and a conversion, the Greenyards faithful will argue that the match should have been wrapped up long before it was.

Melrose ended this match the better team and deserved their win although a victory had looked unlikely after the opening 30 minutes in which the home side hardly touched the ball. Neither side made much of a fist of things in defence as missed tackles were responsible for many of the tries, with Currie's flanker Michael Entwhistle ploughing his way through numerous inert bodies for his second-half score.

The two kickers had swapped early penalties when fly-half Matt Scott grabbed the first try of the afternoon for Currie and at 10-3 ahead the visitors looked sure to kick on. Melrose must have wondered what had hit them, they coughed up four turnovers in the first half hour and couldn't string two passes together without making an unforced error. Just as the locals were watching events through despairing fingers Allan Dodds conjured up the best try of the match for the home team.

Currie winger Dougie Fife was haring towards the Melrose line and odds on to increase his team's lead when he was felled by a combination of Dodds and Callum Anderson who was covering from the opposite wing. Melrose won the turnover and Dodds set off on the counter attack from deep inside his own 22. The speedster showed everyone a clean pair of heels, scorching up the right touchline and if his final pass to Bruce Runciman looked a little forward the referee didn't agree and the Melrose flanker's try is an early candidate for the score of the season.

At the time it looked like a hiccup in Currie's march to victory rather than the key turning point it turned out to be. Currie shrugged off the setback and further first-half tries appeared from Jamie Thompson, after Andy Adam stole a lineout throw five metres from the Melrose line, and Andy McMahon after a Melrose hand knocked the ball backwards over his own line. The score was 22-17 to the visitors at half time despite John Dalziel's short-range effort for the home team.

But Craig Chalmers's side were much improved after the break even if they never quite dominated play.Wight pulled the strings at fly-half and full-back Fraser Thomson popped up with two memorable tries to take the points. The first owed everything to the vision of his skipper who grubbered the ball in behind Currie's rush defence and Thomson was always winning the race to the bouncing ball. The second was even better with the full-back coming into the line on the blind side at such a lick that he rounded two red-faced Currie defenders to score in the corner without a finger laid on him.

The second of Thomson's tries came on 64 minutes, it gave the home team the lead for the second time and they did enough to hold onto it in a nervy last 15 minutes.

Scorers: Melrose: Tries: Runciman, Dalziel, Thomson (2). Cons: Wight (3). Pens: Wight (2). Currie: Tries: Scott, Thompson, McMahon, Entwhistle. Cons: Abercrombie (3). Pens: Abercrombie.

Melrose: F Thomson; C Anderson, J Murray, C Jackson, A Dodds; S Wight, R Chrystie; N Little, R Ferguson, G Holborn, G Dodds, G Elder, J Dalziel, G Runciman, R Miller. Subs: W Mitchell, K Cooney, H Mitchell, S McCormick, B Allan.

Currie: H Abercrombie; C Kinloch, J Johnstone, A McMahon, D Fife; M Scott, R Sneddon; J Cox, F Scott, A Hamilton, R Wilson, A Adam, J Thompson, M Entwhistle, R Weston. Subs: J Clark, N Scobie, G temple, A Binikos, J Smith.

Referee: P Allan.