AFTER last week’s league decider at The Greenyards, today’s BT Cup final at Murrayfield is essentially the return leg in the battle for domestic domination. If Ayr back up last week’s 12-8 triumph with another victory, their supremacy will be beyond dispute. Conversely, if Melrose recover from that reverse, lifting the cup will be a consolation to them, and a reminder to Ayr that Scottish club rugby remains a duopoly.
Melrose have a great record when it comes to reaching the BT Cup final, so it is no surprise to see them back in the showpiece occasion. But they have a pretty awful record when it comes to the match itself, and if they are to come out on top this afternoon it may well be as a result of having learned what went wrong with their preparation in previous seasons.
The Borderers first won the cup back in 1997, the second time it was contested, and a season in which they swept all before them domestically. They also won it 2008, but they have lost the final six times in all – with five of them coming after that victory nine years ago.
A look at the results of those games shows that Melrose were never outclassed, but the closeness of the outcome does suggest that – like that BT Premiership final a week ago – they lack the ruthless cutting edge needed to go from also-rans to champions. A year after beating Heriot’s in the 2008 final, Melrose lost to the same opponents, 21-19. A year later they were beaten 36-23 by Ayr. In 2011 it was Ayr 25 Melrose 21, in 2013 it was Ayr 28 Melrose 25 after extra-time, and last year the score was Heriot’s 21 Melrose 13.
Of course, the personnel is much different from those earlier games at least, but there is a pattern there that needs to be shaken up. Robert Chrystie, Melrose’s head coach, is confident his squad can get the upper hand this time, having seen them put a lot of pressure on Ayr in the closing stages last week only to fail to convert their opportunities.
“We need to be better than we were last week, because we fell a bit short,” he said. “We had chances and we didn’t take them, so we need to look at that. We had clear-cut chances and we need to deal with that.
“A lot of the senior players were down on Saturday night, and we know we can be better. There are certain things we can do a lot better and hopefully put them under a lot more pressure.”
Back in the final for the first time since 2013, Ayr have a far better record than Melrose in the big game, having won three of their four appearances. Having just got the better of today’s opponents last week, they are likely to take a similar game plan this afternoon, targeting Melrose at the breakdown and doing everything possible to disrupt their rolling maul before it gathers momentum.
“I think more of the same,” Ayr captain Pete McCallum said when asked how his team would prepare for today’s game. “We’ve been building towards these two games for a while and knew who we were going to be playing against, so we’ve been preparing well. But we still have a few tricks up our sleeve.
“I think this weekend will be a bit more open.”
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