Falcons make the 70 mile trip to Galashiels for the closest professional derby match the club has, on the back of the 51-19 hammering of Brive at Kingston Park last Saturday, and looking at the fixtures ahead, it’s hard to deny that if the team can return south with the win, then qualification for the quarter-finals is almost – given the back to back games against L’Aquila and the return against Borders – in the bag.

 

Thoughts of that though will go out of the window until after the game, against a Borders side currently lying sixth in the Celtic League and having scored five tries themselves at the Stade Tommaso Fattori last weekend.  With Borders having Brive next up at Netherdale (a game I expect them to win), the Scots themselves will be thinking of the knockout stages should they grab the glory by 6pm on Sunday.

 

And not only is it a local derby (albeit with a national border in between), but there’s a bit of history between the sides.  With Steve Bates having been at Falcons for seven years before leaving during the struggles of 2002/03, plus Alan Tait and George Graham having been part of the championship winning side, there’s a Falcons pedigree there.  Add Semo Setiti – playing against Falcons after spending last season at Kingston Park – and you’ve found the feeling in the match.  Bates himself admitted on the weekly ERC newsletter, “As soon as the draw was made this was always going to be the big one for us”. 

 

And so it should be.  Netherdale’s 7,000 capacity will find itself housing approximately a thousand Falcons supporters, and with the locals turning up in numbers, the old ground, situated next door to Gala Fairydean’s football ground and containing a very atmospheric wooden stand, should be rocking by the 4pm kick off time.  It hasn’t necessarily been a happy hunting ground this season though, with two defeats coming in the four home Celtic League matches so far including a 27-0 reverse to Ulster two weeks ago.  If you look at the teams they’ve beaten though – the champion Ospreys 16-6 and the then-leaders Edinburgh 23-11 – show that there is quality there if Falcons are not right on top of their game.

 

Borders’ record in Europe is not great, it has to be admitted.  Of their 25 games in both competitions so far, they’ve won just seven, including last weekend’s win and four victories over Spanish sides.  Their two best wins quality of opposition wise were a 24-16 win over Llanelli in 1996/97, and an 8-3 success against Agen in February 2004, both at Netherdale.  They’ve lost all five games played against English opposition, losing to Bath twice, Northampton twice and Leicester once.

 

In contrast, Falcons have won all four games they’ve played against Scottish opposition in Europe, but have been defeated at Borders in a friendly 24-10 in a game that Rob Andrew described as nothing more than a training exercise.  The fact that a later friendly in 2002/03 at Kingston Park was won 41-12 is immaterial, as to a great extent are the history and the statistics.  It’s the men on Sunday who hold the destiny of the points.

 

Bates, Tait and Graham have named the following team:-

 

15 Stuart Moffat

14 Simon Danielli

13 Ben MacDougall

12 Garry Law

11 Nikki Walker

10 Charlie Hore

9 Chris Cusiter

 

1 Paul Thomson (captain)

2 Ross Ford

3 Bruce Douglas

4 Opeta Palepoi

5 Scott MacLeod

6 Scott Gray

7 Andy Miller

8 Semo Sititi

 

Replacements:

16 Steve Scott

17 Tom McGee

18 John Dalziel

19 Kelly Brown

20 Wayne McEntee

21 Brendan McKerchar

22 Stephen Cranston

 

Just the ten internationals in the starting XV then, and two more (Scott and Brown) on the bench (only Gregor Townsend of the internationals named in the tournament squad is missing).  Chris Cusiter, one of the better players on the Lions tour, returns at scrum-half after missing last weekend’s game, and Hall Charlton will have a testing afternoon.

 

Rob Andrew, meanwhile, has made three changes to last week’s side, with the entire front row being replaced.  The team:-

 

15 Matthew Burke

14 Tom May

13 Mathew Tait

12 Jamie Noon

11 Anthony Elliott

10 Jonny Wilkinson

9 Hall Charlton

 

1 Grant Anderson

2 Andy Long

3 Tino Paoletti

4 Luke Gross

5 Geoff Parling

6 Mike McCarthy

7 Cory Harris

8 Colin Charvis (captain)

 

Replacements:

Micky Ward

Matt Thompson

David Wilson

Andy Buist

Owen Finegan

James Grindal

Dave Walder

 

Andy Buist returns to the top 22 for the first time since doing his cruciate in Perpignan back at the start of January, and with it increasingly looking that Buist and Geoff Parling will be the lock forwards for many years to come, it’s great to see him fit again.  He’s been in good form in the development XV, now to make the move up again.

 

Referee for Sunday is the best of the Italian referees, Guilio de Santis.

 

For those driving to the match, the ground is on the left hand side as you approach the town centre.  There is a car park opposite the ground which I can't remember the cost of, but it was certainly no more than five pounds (it may even have been two) when I was there less than two years ago.  If you're going into town, walk back to where you came into the ground, turn right, and the town centre is less than ten minutes walk away.  I can recommend both the food and the beer at the ground though!

 

So what’s going to happen?  Well, here’s hoping for an away win.  As I said in the tournament preview last week, this is probably the best bet for a trophy this season, so all I can really say to the players is give it everything.  And then some more.

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