MELROSE have been crowned rugby’s Kings of the Sevens after winning the Jed-Forest tournament at the weekend.

The 26-19 victory against the hosts at Riverside Park put them 15 points clear at the top of the table with just one more event to go.

The side advanced to the final after seeing off Watsonians, Boroughmuir and Edinburgh Accies in the earlier rounds.

And a nail-biting final against Jed-Forest saw Melrose come from behind to claim the silverware, despite the hosts clawing their way back to 19-all with just minutes to go.

Melrose captain Struan Hutchison told Borders Rugby TV: “Obviously everyone’s absolutely delighted with that result.

“We knew we were eight points ahead of Gala going into this tournament but, as I said, we just took it one game at a time and thankfully we managed to come away with ten points, which secures that Kings of the Sevens [title].

“It’s a 10-man squad here today but I think we have probably used over 15 players throughout the whole series.

“This is massive. Melrose have always taken sevens very seriously in seasons gone by.

“For me and a lot of the squad, it’s our first one, so we’re so happy to have got it wrapped up here and we’ll go to Selkirk next week and see how we get on.”

Jed-Forest captain Lewis Young said: “It was a tough one. Obviously we took the lead in the first half and maybe took our foot off the gas a little bit and let them back into the game.

“It was a disappointing way to finish that, for us.”

FINAL TEAMS

Melrose: C Spence, R Brett, H Weir, B Colvine, S Hutchison, D Crawford, H Makowski, A Nagle, M Klein, W Fergie.

Jed-Forest: C Young, J Walker, G Young, G Munro, L Walker, R Marshall, L Young, R Shirra-Gibb, A Bambrick, K Hayes

FULL RESULTS

Round 1: Edinburgh Accies 28 Peebles 14, Malta 14 Hawick 20, Watsonians 14 Melrose 33, Boroughmuir 33 Langholm 14, President’s V11 5 Jed-Forest 43, Berwick 15 Selkirk 19, Musselburgh 7 Kelso 38, Highland 0 Gala 28.

Quarter-finals: Edinburgh Accies 31 Hawick 5, Melrose 31 Boroughmuir 14, Jed-Forest 38 Selkirk 0, Kelso 24 Gala 19 (AET).

Semi-finals: Edinburgh Accies 14 Melrose 19, Jed-Forest 26 Kelso 5.

Final: Melrose 26 Jed-Forest 19.

NEXT UP

The final tournament will take place this weekend at Selkirk.

The first tie at Philiphaugh will be at 2pm.