New age brings less glamour but old spirit prevails

THE consequences of the IRB's decision to throw the game open and permit professionalism were not immediately felt at Melrose.

This was partly because no IRB member country, except perhaps Ireland, was as unprepared for the change as Scotland.

Only a few weeks before the IRB meeting, the word from Murrayfield was that the game would remain amateur. So, for a couple of years, there were no fully professional teams in Scotland.

The old Districts represented us in European competition and international players continued to turn out in league matches for their old clubs. It would not be long however before this was no longer the case.

Already of course the very welcome expansion of the tournament to include clubs from the Southern Hemisphere on a regular basis suggested that the home teams were going to find it more and more difficult to win the tournament.

In 1990 for instance, the Sydney club Randwick, fielding two of Australia's all-time great players, Mark Ella and David Campese, had beaten Kelso 26-8 in the final.

But the gap was not yet that wide, for Randwick had been given a terrific fright by Melrose in the semi-final. Indeed, a Craig Chalmers penalty put the home club 15-12 up as the tie approached injury time.

Then Campese struck. The conditions were appalling, for it had rained much of the afternoon, but just as he was about to be tackled into touch, he took off, as Bill McLaren put it, "in an Olympic swimming dive to aquaplane through the slosh for the try that won the tie 16-15".

He later said that he would never have managed to slither to the try-line if it had been a dry day.

In fact to some people's surprise home teams were to come out on top in the first four years after the game went pro. In 1996 Watsonians beat Stellenbosch University 42-26.

Melrose then collected their own cup twice in succession, beating first Cambridge University and then Watsonians in the Final, and in 1999 Gala, whose last previous win had been in 1994 against Wasps, beat the South African Villagers club 28-5 to lift the trophy.

Gala's success was the most remarkable, for they were in the Second Division that year.

However they won that league and, the evening before the Melrose Sevens, had attended the Scottish Rugby Awards dinner to collect the team of the year award.

So some of the seven might have been expected to have sore heads when they arrived at The Greenyards. Fortunately, perhaps, their star performer, 21-year-old Chris Paterson, who was named player of the tournament, was (and still is) a teetotaller.

Another key member of that seven was the then little-known Australian-born Nathan Hines who like Paterson would go on to win more Scottish caps than players in the more distant amateur days would ever have believed possible. Yet of course their transformation into full-time professionals took them away from the amateur sevens game.

When Watsonians won in 1996 their seven included three of Scotland's squad in their last Five Nations match of the season – Duncan Hodge, Tom Smith and Cameron Mather – but by the end of the century you could no longer look to see current Scottish internationalists in the Sevens.

You might have the pleasure of spotting, or trying to spot, future ones, such as Paterson who would make his Scotland debut a few months after that triumphant day at Melrose.

Like him other future Scotland stars, Marcus Di Rollo and Mike Blair would win the player of the tournament award at Melrose, but none of the three would play there subsequently.

The days when more than half the current Scotland team appeared at Melrose, and when youngsters could hope to see their heroes close up, get their autographs and engage them in conversation, were over – unless of course they were fortunate enough to spot them in the crowd.

So for a great many spectators now Scottish club teams may be almost as anonymous as foreigners. Even club members may recognise few players except in their own seven. This has certainly removed a bit of the glamour, if not the interest, of the tournament. Indeed the same may be said of the guest teams.

You will no longer see established stars like Campese and Ella, though you may have the pleasure of identifying future ones.

So, for example, when Bill McLaren met Percy Montgomery when South Africa came here in 1998, and said, "where have I see you before?" he got the reply, "at Melrose maybe" for he had been in the Villagers Seven a few years before.

So, by the way, had the future South African Test batsman, Herschelle Gibbs. But few of us have as keen an eye as Bill McLaren, and I have to confess I don't remember either Montgomery or Gibbs from that occasion.

So the odds are now against the home clubs. Even when an English guest side – this year it's Leicester Tigers – come to Melrose, their squad, usually composed of apprentice professionals or players on the fringe of their first XV, will nearly always have an obvious physical advantage over their amateur opponents.

A couple of years ago the discrepancy between a young Hawick Seven and their English opponents – Sale Sharks, as I remember – was almost grotesque. And yet, despite everything, the Melrose Sevens more than hold their own as one of the greatest and most enjoyable occasions in the rugby calendar.

That they do so is a tribute to the hard work, commitment and imagination of the Melrose committee – and to their ability to secure the sponsorship which allows them to bring a glittering array of guest teams to the Borders.

This year they come from South Africa (the Shimlas to defend the cup), Australia, Italy, Ireland and England; and there is also a seven from the Chinese Agricultural College, which is something Ned Haig could never have envisaged when he came up with his idea for fund-raising.

There's also the Scotland Sevens squad, under the alias of the Scottish Thistles, and there at least you may see future stars, as of course you may also in the other home clubs. So, despite everything, the Melrose Sevens flourish, and they do so because they so perfectly combine innovation with tradition. One sign of the respect for tradition is that old friends are not forgotten.

So, for instance, Langholm, one of the founder-members of the Border League, will be at Melrose, even though the club, which next season celebrates the 50th anniversary of its Scottish (unofficial) championship, now languishes in the middle of National League 1.

They play Currie in the very first tie, at 11.30, when the crowd may still be sparse, but there will be a rousing cheer when they score and an even bigger one if they win and survive to take the field against the Thistles in round two.

It would be nice if the Ladies Cup was won by a Scottish team, but, no matter who collects it around seven o'clock this evening, the Melrose club will once again be the real winners.

To borrow the famous slogan from Johnnie Walker whisky, Ned Haig's great idea was born in 1883 and is still going strong.