Rare identical card in Tennent's Premiership as quartet prepare for Scottish Schools U-18s boys semi-finals

The teams who meet each other in the Tennent’s Premiership this afternoon will be very familiar with each other because they all played as recently as last weekend.

Christian Townsend is available for Currie and will start at 10.

It does not happen often in a league that you play the same opponents just days apart, but with incidents from last week’s games still fresh in the memory expect theses return legs to be fairly intriguing.

Leaders Hawick made it 10 wins on the spin seven days ago as they thumped bottom side Musselburgh 55-5. The Greens now make the trip to East Lothian with captain Matty Carryer, Nicky Little, Daniel Suddon and Stuart Graham coming in to freshen up their pack. The Stoneyhill outfit did manage to defeat Marr in their last home game so that will give them some hope and they also have Edinburgh Rugby academy second-row Jamie Campbell released to bolster their ranks.

Second placed Currie Chieftains will be aiming to widen the gap between themselves and third placed Edinburgh Accies when they travel to Raeburn Place. Gregor Townsend’s son Christian, the Glasgow Warriors academy player, starts at 10 for Currie while Accies have Matthew Crowther coming into the all-important number seven jersey.

Fourth placed Selkirk swept aside Jed-Forest last Friday night, but they know it will be a much tougher match at Riverside Park against their eighth placed opponents this time. Seventh placed GHA are back at Braidholm and looking to do the double over local rivals Glasgow Hawks who are in fifth place, but cannot find any consistency. And last year’s champions Marr have finally found form and another win over ninth placed Heriot’s Blues at Goldenacre would help them to keep up the pressure on the top four.

Meanwhile, before the club fixtures, earlier in the day the Scottish Schools under-18 boy’s Cup semi-finals take place. Last year’s winners Merchiston Castle School are on the road to take on Strathallan School while Stewart’s Melville College welcome Edinburgh Academy to Inverleith. Over the weekend there are a number of other semi-final ties in other schools and youth Cup, Shield, Plate and Bowl events for boys and girls too.