Ayr 36 Melrose 23



The dream of the double lives on!

A magnificent display by the Millbrae Maestros mastered Melrose to add the Scottish Hydro Premier Cup to last seasons championship title.(highlights on www.scottishrugbytv.com)

Murrayfield was awash with a sea of pink as the Ayr fans took over the national stadium to roar their heroes on to a 36-23 win on an occasion which will never be forgotten by those who were there.

Having witnessed every finals day over the past fifteen years, your correspondent can truthfully say that the only club who have come anywhere close to getting the reception Ayr got as they walked out and the adulation they received when the trophy was presented were fellow Ayrshiremen Garnock when they overcame the odds and Kirkcaldy.

The pink caps started to get in early, a smattering appearing during the Shield final and dotted like carnations among the crowd until, before kick off, a mass of black and pink jerseys, caps, dyed hair and painted faces made their Melrose counterparts, town band and all, look pretty dull.

There were incongruous sights, from the Ayr committee reclining in the Royal Box as though to the manner born, your correspondent sitting in the press box with not a vestige of pink on display but getting pelters nevertheless and my friend who walked around Tesco with her Ayr cap on after kick off time, fearful of taking it off in case it brought bad luck.

Treasured are the memories any club will have in any sport after getting to a national final but often the match itself becomes, if not a footnote, then certainly only part of a host of recollections with only cameos and the result itself writ large.

So it was on Saturday in a match which was engrossing rather than epic with Ayr, as they have done several times in their exhausting run up to the cup final and for the league title, waiting until their opponents ran out of ideas and gas and then pouncing with the killer blows.

Melrose skipper Scott Wight started where he left off last seasons final against Heriots, with a penalty which hit the post. Unlike last year when it was the last kick of the game to win the match, he had time to redeem himself and did just that with his second shot a couple of minute later. Ayr responded from the restart, Jono Crossan charging down Fraser Thomson’s kick and getting the touch down for Frazier Climo to show that the vast wastes of Murrayfield held no fears as he slotted the conversion from the touchline.

Melrose edged back ahead after wing Ben Allan got the luck of the bounce and grabbed the try for Wight to pot the kick but as the half hour approached, Climo’s first penalty levelled the scores then Ayr should have gone ahead but didn’t. Regular readers of this column(all three of you) may remember that at the start of the season I took Ross Curle to task for what Ian Morrison delightfully refers to as ‘premature celebration’ and asked ‘gonnae no dae that’. Well, Grant Anderson obviously either didn’t read that or ignored it as he gesticulated on the way to a certain try only for Thomson to catch him and get under the ball to prevent the score.

His blushes were spared a couple of minutes later but the Ayr full back owes prop Gordy Reid a huge debt as the big man barrelled over off an Andy Dunlop pass with Climo’s conversion taking the score to 17-10, Wight’s final penalty of the half reducing the margin to 17-13 at the break.

Not a comfortable lead but as recent weeks have shown, there is little which dents the self belief of this side and their air of confidence as they returned to the fray was justified when after fifty three minutes, a guddle behind the Melrose scrum put Ayr on the front foot and from a lurking spot on the wing Scott Sutherland, after his winner against West, scored his second crucial try in three games.

That try settled the game and with Jamie Hunter having run the Melrose fringes ragged in first half, it was now AJ MacFarlane’s turn to bring his own brand of torture as he played to the forwards strength and Ayr took control. Wight caused a frisson of doubt with a penalty ten minutes from time but then came the sort of climax for which Ayr have become famous.

Another almighty mess in the Melrose twenty two saw a gleeful Cammy Taylor scamper away for the fourth try and as the significance of that score sank in, the roar became deafening. In the emotion of the afternoon, the fact that this was a double header for both cup and league had been all but forgotten but the wing’s try suddenly had the crowd on their feet as the realisation dawned that the bonus point was in the bag as well.

Four minutes from time, Andy Wilson backed himself to go all the way and collected, Climo made it four conversions from five and when Jamie Murray went over for Melrose in the final play of the game, it simply showed that the proud borderers were always going to play till they dropped.

Coach Kenny Murray admitted that there was a point when he thought that the game was in the balance but he had no need to worry that his men would let him down. “It has been a huge ask for the boys to get here and to stay in contention for the league at the same time and to win the cup is an absolutely incredible achievement” he said. “We have to keep the momentum going for the crucial league match against Currie next Saturday but we now have the cup in the trophy cupboard and that will give the boys an enormous boost.”

Skipper Damien Kelly admitted later that he was delighted how well a ploy Ayr had devised of getting into the Melrose faces and ripping the ball out of the rucks had worked, something they had identified based on a perceived chink in the Melrose armour from their previous meetings.

A veteran of many big games, even Mark Stewart had to admit that the atmosphere was incredible. “The noise from the fans rolling over the pitch was unbelievable” he said �� and the boost that gives you when you are under a bit of pressure is massive.”

“To look up from the track side at that mass of pink at the end of the game is something I will never forget” said Director of Rugby Jock Craig. “Winning the title last season, being in contention this season with three games left and now having won the cup is what we have worked to achieve for years and the club are now at last getting the recognition for those achievements.”

It would be invidious to pick out any player from the twenty two who won the cup, each playing their part, but special mention has to made of Gordon Sykes who played his final match at Millbrae in last weeks win against Dundee and now as retirement looms, his long service and practicing the dark arts of a prop have been deservedly rewarded with a cup winners medal and who knows, perhaps a championship medal to go along with it.

It simply doesn’t stop. Saturday sees the match which will probably decide the destination of the Scottish Hydro Premier 1 title when Ayr travel to Malleny Park to face league leaders Currie. No one else is in the title race, Currie are five points ahead of Ayr but have played one match more so a win for Kelly’s Heros would put them in the driving seat and if the pink and black army can get across to Balerno for Saturdays match their support could be what again inspires Ayr to victory.

Cup Final squad:

Grant Anderson, Andy Wilson, Ross Curle, Mark Stewart, Cammy Taylor: Frazier Climo, Jamie Hunter; Gordon Reid, Stuart Fenwick, Gordon Sykes, Damien Kelly, Scott Sutherland, Andy Dunlop, Jono Crossan, Glen Tippett, Scott Nimmo, Stephen Adair, Blair McPherson, Paul Burke, Johnny McClung, AJ MacFarlane, Steven Manning.