Rugby: Nash and his troops all set for relegation fight ahead

Basement side 'Sonians suffered a heavy 52-17 defeat at home to Premiership leaders Ayr. But that scoreline was embellished by three late tries and Nash rightly believes that there are reasons to feel the Myreside men are moving closer to achieving their potential.

"We can take only positives from it," said the captain. "We knew it was going to be a tough game but we had nothing to lose. We know where we are in the league, we can't make it into the top eight. We've got to be realistic.

"We are going in the right direction. We have some new faces and two new coaches and it's all coming together. We are not putting excuses out there. We're 15 guys going out there onto the pitch and we have shown that we can compete.

"We've been round the block before, we've been in tough games and at the bottom of the league before and we want to roll into the play offs at the end of the season and be ready for it."

Nash led by example, particularly in the second half when 'Sonians enjoyed their best spell of possession and he combined well with Doug Brown and Jamie Forbes to test the Ayr defence. By then, however, the visitors had the game won and the hosts had only a bonus point as their target.

Ayr dominated the first half and had the four try bonus in the bag after 33 minutes, with Gordon Reid opening their account after five minutes before being joined on the score sheet by Damian Kelly, Dougie Steele and Andy Wilson, with Ross Curle landing three conversions for a 26-0 lead.

'Sonians displayed their battling qualities with tries by Harris Grant and Sergiu Ursache to claw their way back into the contest at the interval.

However, hopes of further reducing the deficit were dashed shortly after the restart when Dean Stewart was on hand to apply the final touch after the Ayr pack had driven over. 'Sonians fought back once more through a Dan Gorman touchdown, converted by Forbes, but the visitors again raised their game and scored further converted tries through Robbie Colhoun, Andy Dunlop and Murray Beckwith.

Nash pointed to the passages of play when 'Sonians were in the ascendancy as reason to look forward to the forthcoming relegation battle with confidence. He added: "We come into games at the moment, knowing where we are going to be at the end of the season.

"We know we've got to start putting performances together. We try to break our game into ten-minute and 20-minute phases. At times we saw that. We need to tighten up in defence and we need more communication. We also need to get round the side of rucks more quickly and be a bit more proactive. We know that we can attack and we can exploit the spaces – we showed that when we scored some good tries."

Nash believes the Myreside team spirit will be the defining factor in the survival battle that follows the league split, with the bottom four in Division One playing off against the leading quartet in Division Two for the brace of top flight slots.

"We've got a tight set of boys, good team players and leaders around the park. The guys need to pull together and bring the team through," he insisted, before pointing to the quality of the coaching personnel as another reason for optimism.

"Marcus (Di Rollo] will have spent all weekend looking at that and on Tuesday night, we'll know what we've got to work on."

Despite the travails, Nash is still enjoying his rugby, adding: "I look forward to every Saturday. The enthusiasm Marcus and Andy Barnett bring to it and with guys like Tom Philip around there's loads of enthusiasm.

Watsonians is a fantastic club. But we've got to be realistic about where we're going to be and that's what we are building for.

And he believes that the experience in the Myreside ranks will be crucial over the coming weeks. "We've all played rugby before. We're not being asked by the coaches to do anything we can't do. We're well drilled. We are trying to be as disciplined as possible. Come the play offs, we'll be ready for whatever come at us."

Scorers:

Watsonians: Tries: Grant, Ursache, Gorman. Conversion: Forbes.

Ayr: Tries: Reid, Kelly, Steele, Wilson, Stewart, Colhoun, Dunlop, Beckwith. Conversion: Curle (6).

Watsonians: A Nash, J Forbes, D Brown, C Sorbie, A Killerby, R Aitken, J Blackwood, S Laird, N Hart, K Coertze, D Seed, D Gorman, S Ursache, A Porter, H Grant. Subs used: A Skeen, C Owenson, D Moussa, H Gee, M Ker.

Ayr: D Steele, C Taylor, M Bennett, R McCallum, A Wilson, R Curle, AJ MacFarlane, G Reid, P McArthur, S Fenwick, D Stewart , D Kelly, R Colhoun, A Dunlop, G Tippett. Subs used: G Sykes, S Nimmo, S Adair, R Fergusson, M Beckwith.

Referee: J Matthews.