Lengthening injury list could hit Southern Knights’ chances of bouncing back from defeat in Super6 season opener

Not only does it leave them bottom of the table without any points but their injury woes were compounded by five players going off hurt, with most of them likely to be ruled out of Friday’s game at home at the Greenyards in Melrose to another Edinburgh side, Boroughmuir Bears.

Head coach Bruce Ruthven remains optimistic, if realistic, about his side’s chances of bouncing back from that opening-day loss, however.

“We’re still carrying a couple of injuries from the Sprint Series and the guys are working hard to get back to fitness, but it certainly compounds things when you get another five injuries in your first game,” he said.

“We don’t know for sure yet, but there’s a good chance four of them will be out, out of the five, if not all five.

“Callum Grieve, our No 10, has got a possible anterior cruciate ligament tear, so that could be his season over, and there are two or three other guys still pretty sore.

“It certainly doesn’t help things after your first game in.

“It was really unlucky actually. These guys they’re pretty fit boys, but they’ve just been unlucky.

“These things do happen, but when they happen in one game, they put stress on your chances of putting a strong, competitive squad out in the weeks after.”

Prior to losing a third of their line-up to injuries, the Knights had been giving their Edinburgh visitors a run for their money at Melrose’s Greenyards, according to Ruthven.

“I thought we played really well in the first half,” said the 43-year-old.

“We were dominant in a lot of aspects of the game. Our set-piece was good, our defence looked really composed and there was a lot of maturity among the young guys, but in the seccond half, once we started losing players, it unsettles things, especially at the start of the season because your squad haven’t been together that long.

“Guys coming in haven’t had that time in training to really fit in, and it does take time, so when we bring guys off the bench it does make it quite tough to get continuity throughout the game.

“If you look at that last 40 minutes, we just fell out of the game, and a lot of that was due to having to make substitutions. It was a big learning curve for the guys coming on.

“Ultimately, we’ve got a new squad, a young squad, and putting players together is going to take time, but that first 40 minutes shows we can compete and do well against more established teams. For us, it’s just a matter of being patient and working hard and in time it will come.”

The hosts’ try-scorers on Saturday were Sam Derrick and Struan Cessford, with David Colvine converting one.

Neil Irvine-Hess, Jason Baggott, Lewis Berg, Angus Guthrie and Karl Main scored their opponents’ tries, with Baggott and Lee Millar converting two each and Baggott adding a penalty.

Looking ahead to this week’s game, Ruthven said: “We played them in a warm-up game a couple of weeks ago and we did really well.

“We’ll go into that game confident, as with any game at the Greenyards.

“The guys will have a bit to prove after that last 40 minutes at the weekend, so we’ll be ready for it and we’ll go in confident.”

The Knights will also be out to make amends after losing their two Sprint Series games against Boroughmuir, both away in May – by 32-14 at the end of the month and 31-18 a week earlier.

Friday’s game kicks off at 7.45pm and will be broadcast live on FreeSports and Scottish Rugby’s website.