Melrose in full bloom: Memories of a golden era have been rekindled pursuit of a league and cup double

All eyes were on Melrose yesterday for the Sevens, and it's a feeling that the club will be getting used to over the next fortnight. In consecutive weeks the Borders side are back at Murrayfield for their fourth national cup final in a row where they will face Ayr, followed the week after by the visit of the same opponents to the Greenyards for a match which could see Melrose seal their first league title since 1997.

Those two matches against Ayr constitute, says veteran flanker and forwards coach John Dalziel, "the most important week for Melrose for the past 14 years". With the club fighting for silverware on two fronts, it certainly feels as if the side is on the cusp of a return to the halcyon days of the 1990s when the men in the famous yellow and black hoops won six league titles in eight years.

Yet Melrose have reached this tipping point without making major changes to their squad along the way, a fact that 34-year-old Dalziel hopes will ensure that success is here to stay. "This is the sixth season for (head coach] Craig (Chalmers] and myself, and our league position has got better each year," he says.

"When we took over we had a young squad that we've tried to nurture, and with the closure of the Borders (pro team] in 2007 we've tried to become the focus for ambitious young players in the area by playing an exciting brand of rugby that people want to be a part of."

That brand of rugby has seen a talented Melrose back division expertly marshalled by skipper Scott Wight, consistently scoring lots of tries, but sometimes without a sufficiently hard-nosed approach up front against the top sides.

The recent win at Currie, in which Melrose absorbed the champions' muscular assaults and then scored some superb counter-attacking tries, before eventually assuming complete control up front, showed the way in which the club has evolved.

"We've always been able to score two or three tries a game, even against the best sides, but we're no longer going wide at all costs," says Dalziel. "We've tried to establish some control up front by varying the way we play. That has created space for guys like (wing] Callum Anderson and (full-back] Fraser Thomson. We're a more complete side now."

Although Melrose haven't been going out and recruiting wholesale, a judicious strengthening programme is continually under way and it is this, along with the development of the younger players, which Dalziel believes underpins this season's breakthrough.In particular, the recruitment of tighthead prop Gary Holborn from Jed has anchored the scrum, while Dalziel says the arrival of Kiwi second row Hayden Mitchell has added some much-needed grunt to a back five of the scrum which has often consisted of five back rowers. Together, they've finally ensured that a back row of Dalziel, openside Grant Runciman and strong-running No.8 Graeme Dodds, plus one of the most talented back divisions in Premier One, has a solid platform to work off.

However, with several other players from other Borders clubs - prop Nicky Little and scrum-half Rab Chrystie are from Hawick, Gary Elder and Gary Holborn are ex-Jed, and Callum Anderson arrived from Peebles, to name but five - there is a lingering suspicion that Melrose, cash-rich thanks to its Sevens, is making hay off the back of players developed by other clubs. Unsurprisingly, Dalziel doesn't see it that way.

"Melrose is a small town of 2,000 people so even when Jim Telfer was playing it was the case that they have always had to spread their net wide, and we don't make any apologies for the fact that we're looking for two or three good players to join us each year," says Dalziel, who himself joined Melrose from his home-town club of Gala.

"Players come to us because they want to be involved, and we don't go looking abroad for players, nor do we take everyone who wants to come. We'll have between 14-16 boys in the first team squad who are local lads who went to Earlston High School, and there's a real hard core of boys who've come all the way up through the club - we've got players in several Scotland age grade teams, including three in the under-20s."

Rather than cannibalising the available talent, Dalziel believes that Melrose's re-emergence is benefiting all the clubs in the Borders. Although traditionally the nation's rugby heartland, the disbandment of the Border Reivers in 2007 and the decision not to bring the World Sevens to The Greenyards, seem to be symptomatic of a wider disaffection with the game in the area.

Where Borders clubs won all but two of the first 25 league titles, they have won only two of the last 14, with past champions like Gala and Kelso no longer in the top flight, let alone former Premier One clubs JedForest, Selkirk, Biggar and Peebles, leaving strugglers Hawick and Melrose as the Borders' sole representatives.

Dalziel believes the emergence of Melrose as the top Borders club, with the under-18 side coached by Jim Telfer now churning out future first-teamers, will lead to a concentration of resources which will give local players a path to wider recognition and re-energise rugby in the area.

"We're getting back to the point where Melrose is seen as a stepping-stone for ambitious players who want to become club internationals, play Scotland Sevens, go to the pro-teams or go south," says Dalziel."We've got a pretty professional committee here, and because Craig and I have both been in pro-rugby our training sessions are maybe a little more technical than you'll get at other clubs.

"We're also really ambitious for our players, and we want them to go on and get the same out of the game that we did.

"Because I'm friendly with Stevie Scott at Sale, we've had Fraser Thomson down there for trials, and we consider it a triumph if we get one of our guys a chance to move to a higher level."

One player who Dalziel is frustrated not to have waved goodbye to is 25-year-old stand-off Scott Wight, a fine kicker of the ball whose expert game management has helped bring on talented young centre Joe Helps, as well as providing tries for the back three of Allan Dodds, Anderson and Thomson.

"Scott has aspirations, and he's had a lot of interest from English Championship clubs, with offers from some big clubs like Nottingham," says Dalziel.

"But going down there on a first-year pro's salary for someone with a young family and a good job as a time-served carpenter, as Scott has, would be very difficult. We're disappointed that neither Edinburgh nor Glasgow have given him a chance, although there's still time for that to change."

For the moment, though, Dalziel's focus is on the immediate future. Still playing fantastically well for a man of his advancing years, the flanker is desperate to win a first league title.

To do that Melrose need to get past Ayr, the 2009 league champions who also beat them in last year's cup final, but Dalziel believes the harsh lessons learned in their previous three cup finals - a 31-24 win over Heriot's in 2008, followed by a last-minute defeat by Heriot's in 2009 and a 36-23 loss to the men from Millbrae last year - will stand them in good stead. So, too, will Ayr's loss of stand-off Frazier Climo, who has returned to Taranaki.

"The experiences of the past two years will spur us on," says Dalziel, "although with Ayr we can't take anything for granted.

"They had a slow start this season but (skipper] Damian Kelly is back from injury, Mark Bennett is back from training with Clermont-Auvergne and their back row of three rugged out-and-out sevens in Andy Dunlop, Robbie Colquhoun and Paul Burke will really test us.

"Last year we played most of the rugby but they controlled the breakdown. We've got a few plans for them though. But then we've always got plans!"