BEN CAIRNS has announced that he will stand down from the head coach role at Stirling Wolves at the end of the ongoing Super6 Championship season.

The Bridgehaugh outfit have struggled with injuries and

international age-grade players being barred from competing during the first half of this campaign, contributing to the team losing all six matches played, but Cairns stressed that this was not a factor behind the parting of ways.

“It is a purely personal decision, and it is not based on one thing,” said Cairns. “It is ultimately based on me looking ahead and thinking I don’t see myself staying in the role.

“I’ll have been at the club for nearly four years at the end of this season, so it has been a long spell,” added the former Scotland centre. “It has come with a lot of challenges. I’ve chucked a lot of time and effort at it and made lots of sacrifices on the family side of things to try and push things forward.

“The toll of the travel from Edinburgh to Stirling and the time away from family when they are young is time I’m not going to get back, so I’ve just decided that I need to put them first.”

Stirling are in action tonight when they host top-of-the-table Watsonians. Meanwhile, tomorrow’s Ayrshire Bulls v Southern Knights match has been declared a double-header, due to a lack of available dates available to re-arrange the postponed match between the two sides.