Time for capital clubs to make great escape

THIS afternoon's club rugby action promises to have a major bearing on the make-up of the Premier One table next season, with Watsonians and Edinburgh Accies both looking to boost their chances of surviving relegation by getting positive results from their matches against Boroughmuir and Glasgow Hawks respectively.

The Myreside men are marginal favourites to join Stew-Mel in dropping out of the top flight at the end of this season, but they are only five points adrift, and with a game in hand they know that a big win today coupled to a defeat for Accies in Glasgow would blow this relegation battle wide open.

Meanwhile, the identity of the sides coming into the top flight next year is also likely to be confirmed today, with Stirling County and Hawick needing just one point and three points respectively from today's games to secure promotion from Premier Two.

Hawick undoubtedly have the tougher task with a trip to fourth placed GHA, while County shouldn't have too much bother disposing of already-relegated Dunfermline. Even if the Borderers don't get the win they need today, though, they will have two more cracks at the whip against the Fifers and third-bottom Jed-Forest in their final two matches. For both sides it is a case of when rather than if they will make it back up.

This is well-trodden ground for Stirling: they have been relegated before and have always bounced back, and having retained almost all of their leading players during the summer they started this season as favourites to win the Premier Two championship race.

The situation wasn't quite so clear-cut for Hawick. When the most successful club side in Scottish rugby's history dropped out of the top flight for the first time since the introduction of organised leagues in 1973, there was genuine concern that this might tip them over the edge on to a slippery slope. The migration of players up the A7 to Edinburgh is not a new problem for Hawick, but in recent years it has become a much bigger issue, and with Border rivals now also tapping into their rich seam of talent, they were going to have to battle hard to get things moving once again in the right direction again.

"We were delving into the unknown – there is no doubt about that – but we got off to a flyer by beating Stirling up there in our first game," said club secretary John Thorburn. "That put us on the front foot, which is where we have been for most of the rest of the season. It is a very different culture in Premier Two, it is not as intense, and I think that has helped the guys build up their confidence.

"But it hasn't all been plain sailing – we lost twice to Gala. They beat us fair and square and I think that was because those were typical Border derbies and some of the young guys didn't adapt to the ferocity which those matches have."

If and when Hawick secure promotion, this young team will encounter plenty more ferocious challenges such as that laid down by Gala, but Thorburn says he is relaxed about his club's chances of survival.

"I'm not going to talk about going up until it actually happens, but I will say that the gap between the bottom four or five teams in Premier One and the top three or four team in Premier Two is pretty small," he said. "The best we have played this season was against Currie in the Cup, when we lost to a penalty in the final minute – so we know we are not far off."

At the end of his first season coaching senior rugby, former Scotland prop Gerry McGuinness is equally optimistic about the future of the club. "Hawick is still producing good players, and we're hoping that f ew of the boys who have gone elsewhere might be tempted back. The SRU have indicated that they want the country's best young players to be turning out for their clubs more often in the future so this could be the start of an exciting time for Scottish club rugby. Hopefully Hawick can be at the heart of what is going on."