Champions Melrose have been dealt a blow two weeks before the start of the BT Premiership with the loss of centre Joe Helps.
The hard-running midfielder and goal kicker fractured his lower arm on Saturday in Melrose's 46-30 Border League win over Selkirk at Philiphaugh and will be out for at least eight weeks.
Helps made the No.12 jersey his own in the past two seasons, cementing his position by being able to kick goals from inside the opposition half.
"We can't hide behind how much of a miss Joe will be. Austin Lockington, Murdo McAndrew and Richard Mill can all kick goals but none can pop them over from 51 metres," said John Dalziel, the Melrose coach.
Top of the replacement list could be the Taylor brothers, Richard and George, both of whom have played for Scotland under-18 at centre.
Younger brother George impressed against Selkirk and has a chance to further his career this week when he travels to Romania with Scotland under-19s. However, he has another year at Loretto, where he is on a scholarship, and it is likely that the Musselburgh school would insist on him playing in their colours.
Elder brother Richard suffered concussion last season and requires a positive result from a scan before he will be considered. Also staking a claim is outside-back Rory Tolland, who returned to rugby after knee reconstruction surgery and who looked the part against Selkirk. "We're trying to get him integrated. He's in brilliant condition," said Dalziel, while adding that Andrew Nagle could be another option.
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