DOUBLES and quadruples featured heavily in Scottish rugby’s finals day at BT Murrayfield as Melrose and Hillhead/Jordanhill confirmed their superiority in the domestic men’s and women’s games respectively.
The most eye-catching performance of the afternoon was produced by Ross McCann as he claimed four of Melrose’s seven tries in their 45-12 cup final victory over Stirling County, but their coach Rob Chrystie noted that the winger had been the principal beneficiary of a fine collective performance.
“When Ross knew that he was up against Niko [Matawalu] he was pretty focused, but this is a special group of players, by far the best I’ve coached here and they deserve to enjoy this because these kind of moments don’t come around very often,” he said.
Clearly unperturbed at being confronted by Glasgow Warrior Matawalu, McCann had acrobatically leapt past the Fijian
international to score the first of his side’s tries, then broke his attempted tackle on the way to registering their second to put them well on course for victory with just 13 minutes gone.
Stirling responded with a try from prop Gary Holborn, but No 8 Iain Moody got the third for the Borderers as they claimed a 19-5 advantage at the interval and his back-row colleague Ruaridh Knott made the game safe early in the second half. McCann then completed his hat-trick, rounding off a fine counter-attack sparked by George Taylor and was given an easy run-in to claim his fourth after Craig Robertson had scored County’s second, while Taylor rounded things off in the final minute.
Earlier Carrick completed a hat-trick of successive victories in the Shield with a 39-19 defeat of Hawick Harlequins, while in the clash between two teams whose homes are more than 275 miles apart, those from the north prevailed as Invergordon’s Ross Sutherland ground out a 12-5 win over Stranraer-based Wigtownshire.
In the women’s final it was a double double for Hillhead/Jordanhill, who held on to the Sarah Beaney Cup and added that trophy to the league title they had already secured, running in 12 tries as they thrashed Watsonians 68-12.
In the women’s bowl, National League second division champions Oban Lorne showed their readiness to step up by beating first division Garioch 45-5 and in the plate the students of Glasgow University beat Greenock Wanderers 34-17.
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