Unless things go "drastically wrong", former Glasgow Warrior Calum Forrester has laced up his boots for the last time.
The new Ayr coach made the tough decision to move into coaching after undergoing his fifth knee surgery at just 27-years-old - and he believes the new challenge is more than enough to fulfil his appetite for competition.
"I have been involved in coaching at different levels for years now", said the former Scotland sevens international, "but this is my first time as the head coach of a full senior club.
"It would take a lot of injuries among the squad for me to be convinced to pull on the jersey again. I achieved a lot in my career and now it's time to concentrate on coaching. I learnt so much about coaching from Kenny [Murray] and Peter [Laverie]. They always had the respect of players and I will follow their example."
The club have made a number of additions during the off-season, the most high profile being former Edinburgh second row Robert McAlpine, as well as prop Fraser Watts from Currie. The back row will be significantly bolstered by the additions of Scotland club internationalist Will Bordill - who has signed a training contract with Glasgow Warriors - from Stirling County, Blair Macpherson from Hillhead Jordanhill and Marr's Ben Johnson. Utility back Gavin Lowe also joins after a year at Glasgow Hawks.
"It's an exciting time . There are a lot of new faces who have impressed but Ben has been a revelation during pre-season", said the former Warrior. "He is exceptionally quick and at just 19 I don't see why he shouldn't be challenging for age-grade honours this year. His potential is incredible."
The Millbrae side kick off their campaign with a visit from Gala on Saturday. "Last year, we were just one win away from winning the league," added Forrester. "The players know how important every single point is."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article