RBS Regional Rugby Cup: Biggar give new coach Armstrong perfect start

BIGGAR gave new head coach Deke Armstrong the perfect start to his reign at Hartreemill by qualifying for the RBS Edinburgh Regional Cup semi-finals on Saturday.

They defeated Watsonians 27-14 in difficult conditions to win pool 3 following two bonus point victories, the one over the Myreside men coming seven days after they beat Stewart’s Melville.

Early on it looked like the Edinburgh side would be the ones to progress after they took a 14-0 lead through tries from Dougie Brown and Tom Hart which were both converted by Brian Walls.

But Biggar got themselves on the scoresheet before the break through an unconverted try from Kiwi Joe Scheres and they never looked back.

In the second 40 minutes Craig Parker scored a penalty before both Suti Faamausili and Josh Harvey went over for converted tries.

Parker, the nephew of recently-departed head coach Gary Parker, then made sure of the win with a fourth try late on.

Pool 1 in the same event has only just begun and it is Currie who lead the fledgling table after they managed a 25-12 win over Boroughmuir at Meggetland. Currie played some great stuff in the early stages to all but tie up the victory, but the match was marred by two red cards.

In the 14th minute Boroughmuir’s Nick Fraser was adjudged to have punched Currie’s Mike Entwhistle and, as an act of retribution, Entwhistle’s team-mate Simon Marcell punched Fraser. Fraser and Marcell were sent off by the French exchange referee.

In terms of the action of a positive nature by that point, Currie had already been 12-0 up after tries by Ross Weston and James Johnstone.

Barry Mansfield and Jamie Forbes scored further tries and although ’Muir had pulled things back to 22-12 at the break, the visitors saw the match through.

Melrose opened their RBS Border Regional Cup campaign with a 17-7 win over Kelso at the Greenyards.

It was the visitors who opened the scoring through a converted try by Andy Tait and they had further chances in the first 40 minutes, but led just 7-3 at the turnaround.

Jamie Murray’s converted try put ’Rose 10-7 up and in the last minute Romanian Petru Tamba scored another to see them home.

Gala fought hard to defeat Selkirk 11-3 at Philiphaugh, the visitors’ points coming from a George Graham try and two Lee Millar penalties to a Michael McVie penalty for the hosts.