Ayr answered their doubters in emphatic style and recaptured top spot in the Tennent’s Premiership table with an impressive performance and convincing victory over last season’s champions Melrose at The Greenyards on Saturday afternoon – the win courtesy of pack power and a masterclass in game management by stand-off Frazier Climo, with the whole team making light of the treacherous weather conditions.
Pete Murchie’s side started this season in scintillating form – picking up eight bonus point wins on the bounce – before suffering a pretty significant wobble by losing three of their last five matches before this weekend. Last week’s home defeat to Heriot’s saw fall below Melrose on the league ladder and meant that they travelled to The Greenyards as outsiders.
“We’ve had a few difficult weeks and pretty well everyone had written us off,” conceded Murchie. “We came here very determined. The boys worked so hard when they didn’t have the ball. We tried to play in the right areas and took our chances when they came.”
Replacement hooker Richard Ferguson opened the scoring for Melrose, but Ayr bounced back through two penalties for Climo. The visitors then added two tries before half-time, with a Danny McCluskey break and kick-ahead setting up Paddy Dewhirst for the score, with Climo crossing himself after some good driving play from his forwards.
Edinburgh pro George Taylor added some impetus for Melrose when he joined the fray at the start of the second half, and his powerful run set up a try for Patrick Anderson. But Ayr were soon back on top, with Pat MacArthur grounding the ball from a driven line-out and Climo nailing the touchline conversion.
Melrose got their third try through Iain Sim but they then fell further behind when a spilled pass gifted Ayr the bonus-point score they were after, and – almost inevitably – it was that man Climo who finished off the move to take his personal tally for the day up to 22 points.
“Too many individual mistakes and when you do that against a team that’s desperate you get punished," conceded Melrose coach Rob Chrystie afterwards. "Credit to Ayr, they’ve been in a dark place in the last couple of weeks and they deserved their win.”
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