![\"Monaco\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Watson26052310622-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThistles had a relatively unchallenging passage through the first two rounds defeating Musselburgh and then Peebles before taking on the host club Melrose in the first of the quarter finals. Reknowned sevens performer Freddie Owsley showed his electric pace with a brace of tries in the first half only for Melrose to replay with two from Ruari Campbell and one from Hamish Weir to take the lead. But a try by Isaac Coates settled the tie to take Thistles into a semi final against Kelso.<\/p>\n
Without their creative midfield back, Liam Herdman, who was unavalable for the Melrose tournament, Kelso were were unable to challenge Scottish Thistles and in the end tries by Gregor Johnson, Sam Leweni, Murray Waugh, Mitchell Newell and Owsley added up to a 33-5 victory for the guest side, Kelso\u2019s points coming from a late try by Murray Woodcock.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the final against Edinburgh Accies a brace each by Owsley and Brent Jackson was enough to secure a 22-5 win over Accies whose scores came from Robbie Chalmers and Bobby Beattie, the latter one of four Ayr players drafted into the Raeburn Place squad.\u00a0For their part it was a disappointing ending for Edinburgh Accies to what had the makings of a dream tournament after dismissing Edinburgh Rugby by 19-12 in the quarter finals and then achieving a dramatic 15-7 semi final win against a strong Ayr side that had defeated guest side, Newcastle Red Bulls, who had trampled over Glasgow Hawks and Hawick before being reined in by the Millbrae men in a tense quarter final tie.<\/p>\n
After the final, Accies coach, Kerr Gossman, referenced the difficulties his side had experienced with such high carnage figures. He said: \u201cLosing four boys in the semifinal wasn\u2019t ideal. We were very fortunate to have four boys from Ayr for the final but trying to get them up to speed on the way we play is a difficult one.\u00a0And when you\u2019re going against a great team, it\u2019s a difficult place to be, but we\u2019re gonna push on for next week. The Kings of the 7s title is still on and it\u2019s our home tournament. We had a lot of standout performances today but hopefully next week\u2019s a better outcome. But we\u2019re proud of what we achieved; a lot of people don\u2019t get to Melrose finals. We\u2019re taking it as a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
By reaching the final Edinburgh Accies have reduced Melrose\u2019s lead in the race for the Kings of the Sevens title to just seven points making it possible that Accies could still seize the crown next Saturday at Raeburn Place. Overall the 2026 edition of the Melrose 7s men\u2019s tournament was engaging for a public that had not connected with the semi pro sides such as Shogun, Monaco Imps and the British Army.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Monaco won the women\u2019s event at the Howden Melrose Sevens. Image: \u00a9Craig Watson www.craigwatson.co.uk<\/p>\n
That said the women\u2019s tournament still bore the evidence of this trend to invite such teams. Even the Melrose 1883 side, apart from wearing the host club\u2019s famous jersey,\u00a0 did not showcase local players.\u00a0Another problem was the odd number (five) of teams in the women\u2019s tournament which necessitated an over-lengthy round robin competition. What emerged was high quality rugby but in truth it was more an exhibition of the women\u2019s sevens game than a captivating spectacle of ties.<\/p>\n
Melrose 7s results<\/p>\n
Mens tournament:\u00a0 Round 1.\u00a0 Scottish Thistles 33\u00a0 Musselburgh\u00a0 7,\u00a0 Durham University 7 Currie Chieftains\u00a0 17, Newcastle Red Bulls 35 Glasgow Hawks 14 , Stirling County 5 Edinburgh Rugby 17<\/p>\n
Round 2: Melrose 31\u00a0 Gala\u00a0 10, Scottish Thistles 28 Peebles\u00a0 0, Currie Chieftains 14 Boroughmuir 19 ,\u00a0 Watsonians 10 Kelso 17, Ayr 54 Jed-Forest 5, Hawick 5 Newcastle RB 42, Edinburgh Rugby 38\u00a0 Selkirk\u00a0 5,\u00a0 Heriot\u2019s 7 Edinburgh Accies 22.<\/p>\n
Quarter finals:\u00a0 Melrose 17 Scottish Thistles 21, Boroughmuir 7 Kelso 19, Ayr 24 Newcastle RB 21, Edinburgh Rugby 12 Edinburgh Accies 19<\/p>\n
Semi finals: Scottish Thistles 33 Kelso 5, Ayr 7 Edinburgh Accies 15<\/p>\n
Final: Scottish Thistles 22 Edinburgh Accies 10<\/p>\n
Teams in the final:\u00a0<\/p>\n
Scottish Thistles: M Waugh, R Mitchell, F Callaghan, G Johnson, M Newell, S Hamilton, L Wells, S Leweni, L Munro, B Jackson, F Owsley, I Coates<\/p>\n
Edinburgh Accies: C MacDonald, N Godsmark, J Townshend, V Hart, R Chalmers, R Kent, B Beattie, B Granger, M Wallace, A McGowan, R Orr, G Barlow.<\/p>\n
Referee: Chelsea Gillespie<\/p>\n
Womens tournament:\u00a0 Round 1 Scottish Thistles 15 Monaco UMUSA 29, Shogun Rugby 0 Melrose1883 36 Round 2 Shogun Rugby 17 Hearts and Balls 29, Melrose 1883 12 Scottish Thistles 29 Round 3 Scottish Thistles 31 Hearts and Balls 5, Melrose\u00a0 1883 19 Monaco UMUSA Round 4 Scottish Thistles 33 Shogun Rugby 10, Monaco UMUSA 34 Hearts and Balls 12 Round 5 Melrose 1883 43 Hearts and Balls 12, Shogun Rugby 0 Monaco UMUSA 48; Final Melrose 5 Monaco UMUSA 22<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thistles had a relatively unchallenging passage through the first two rounds defeating Musselburgh and then Peebles before taking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[54026,205254,5903,205255,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-601133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-divi","tag-melrose","tag-rugby","tag-sevens","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}