Kelvinside Academy will be aiming to repeat their 2008 success in the Brewin Dolphin Scottish Schools under-18 Plate when they face the 2012 champions Earlston High School in the final tomorrow night on the 3G pitch at Murrayfield.
The Balgray side reached the final with a 36-33 win over Queen Victoria School in the penultimate round match and, while , Earlston High School defeated Boroughmuir High School 12-5.
Earlston High School, which has been accorded School of Rugby status, offers extra curricular rugby on regular basis for pupils in S1-S3 but at under-16 and under-18 levels rugby is the province of the local club, Melrose Wasps, the winners of this season's Youth League Bowl, with whom Earlston has a strong link that includes the involvement of a development officer.
As a soon-to-be School of Rugby, Earlston will benefit hugely from the inputs that membership of this scheme offers and if they can make the progress shown by fellow Borderers, Hawick High School, then Earlston High School rugby could flourish and perhaps return to its glory days when it produced a string of international players, among them Craig Chalmers, Graham Shiel, Steve Brotherstone and Carl Hogg.
Being a School of Rugby has certainly helped Carrick Academy and on Saturday the South Ayrshire showcased their development with a hat-trick of wins over Lenzie Academy at junior level. For their part the aforementioned Hawick High School had three representatives in the Scotland under-18 team that defeated Irish Schools at Dundee on Saturday, and surely this confirms that with the right structure in place positive interventionist schemes such as Schools of Rugby can begin to realise the vast potential of rugby in state schools.
The three Hawick players will be part of the 27-strong Scotland under-18 squad that will travel to Toulouse tomorrow for the European Rugby under-18 championship. The Scots play France in the opening round with England or Portugal their opponents in the semi final.
Meanwhile the sevens circuit moves to Myreside today when George Watson's College will host the annual Caritas tournament. Watson's will go into the Caritas Sevens having won the Merchiston Sevens and then the Goldenacre Sevens, beating Merchiston in the final in both tournaments .
Also being staged this week is the Duncanrig Sevens on Thursday at which Carrick will be represented. Elsewhere Glasgow High School lost out to George Heriot's School in the final of their own sevens at Anniesland last week.
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