The Battle of the Sweaties

From the London Scottish offy site, the first time Scottish Exiles have met a Scottish club in anger for years:

"Melrose Preview: Saturday 17th December

This coming Saturday London Scottish complete their pool matches in the British & Irish Cup with the long awaited "Battle of the Jocks" match against Melrose. In what promises to be a tough and uncompromising game, both sides will be determined to come out on top. League form will go out of the window and Scottish will be looking to finish off their cup campaign in style. Scottish will be putting out a full strength side for this game

Melrose Rugby Club was formed in 1877, one year before Scottish and are a club steeped in traditions of the Scottish game. They are only one of three clubs in the world who have been inducted into the International Rugby Board Hall of Fame, with the other two being Cardiff RFC and the Barbarians RFC club. Melrose was inducted into the Hall of Fame as the founding fathers of the 7 a side game of rugby, which was invented by the great Ned Haig in 1883. Melrose won the first ever tournament beating their great local rivals Gala in the final. Despite the population of Melrose being only around 3500, they have maintained their position as being one of the leading rugby clubs in Scotland throughout the years.

The club has produced 22 Scottish international players over the course of their history, who's luminaries include; Craig Chalmers (their current Head coach) with 60 caps, winger Keith Robertson with 44 caps and Jim Telfer who achieved 25 caps with the club and went onto have a successful coaching career with Scotland as the Director of Rugby, and coaching the British & Irish Lions forwards on their 1997 tour to South Africa. Jim Telfer also had the honour of coaching Scotland to the 1984 Grand Slam under the captaincy of David Sole, whose son Jamie recently joined London Scottish.

In their three previous British & Irish cup matches this season Melrose have won against Bedford Blues 19 -17 and Aberavon 9 - 8 at home, with their one defeat coming and the hands of Leinster A 42 - 20 away. With their record in the cup this season, they will no doubt be looking to seal another victory on Saturday and progress to the quarter finals. For Scottish, the British & Irish Cup has been somewhat of an anti-climax with the team under performing in their three pool matches so far. This could be attributed to the squad rotation of players, however one thing is for sure that a stronger performance is guaranteed as Scottish will be looking to gain victory on Saturday in a match which has been eagerly anticipated both sides of the Border since the draw was made.

With Melrose being very much a community style club the vast majority of their players are from the local area around Melrose and this is what gives the club their strength. The local players giving their all for the team and the village provides that solidity which is sometimes lacking in other teams who play at the higher echelons of the club game in Scotland. So who should the Scottish supporters look out for in the Melrose side? One of their key players is fly half Scott Wight who although moving onto Glasgow Warriors last summer, still turns out for Melrose in the British & Irish Cup matches. Other notable players who played for Melrose in their win last weekend against Aberavon was Scotland Internationalist and Edinburgh winger/centre Simon Webster, together with the former Edinburgh winger Mark Robertson. In the forwards former Scotland U20 prop Lewis Niven, (who is on Edinburgh's books) started in the pack. In addition, their forwards coach John Dalziel plays in the back row and has won honours with the South of Scotland and has turned out four times for the Barbarians.

A warm welcome to all who have made the journey down from Melrose and the game is sure to be a pre-Xmas cracker. Enjoy the game and the after match hospitality in the bar for what promises to be a great Scottish day out just before the Christmas festivities start. See you all there."