Arnold Clark Men’s Premiership final preview: Ayr v Watsonians

Both sides weathered strong opposition in their respective semi-finals, with Ayr scoring two late tries to defeat Currie Chieftains 36-26, and Watsonians defeating neighbours Heriot’s 31-12 at their place.

Home side Ayr finished the regular season with a single loss – to Currie – from their 22 league matches, defeating Watsonians twice in doing so.

Those two hit outs were decided by a total of just nine points, 12-7 and 22-26.

The visitors, on the other hand, have built steadily into the league after two losses in a row to start the season, going on to finish with 15 wins and seven losses.

Watsonians’ Neil Irvine-Hess was upbeat ahead of the challenge ahead, saying in finals rugby, form goes out of the window.

“Away trips to Millbrae are always difficult, but personally I don’t think there’s a better place to play a meaningful game of rugby in Scotland. The challenge of winning there is fantastic and it’s just about getting ourselves up for that and be mentally ready for everything that brings.”

Ayr’s stand-off Bobby Beattie said his side has exceeded even the team’s own high expectations for the season.

“I’m expecting to be feeling pretty sore the next day. There are some big boys playing at Watsonians, they have a big forward pack. It’s games like that for us that are our most physical games we can encounter, and you can see by the two scorelines in the season that they’ve both been tight battles and it’ll go down to the wire.”

The match kicks off at 4:30pm on Saturday 26 April from Millbrae. If you can’t be there, you can watch the live coverage on BBC ALBA from 4:20pm, on BBC iPlayer, and internationally on the Scottish Rugby YouTube channel.

Team sheets:

Ayr

15. Robbie Orr
14. Amena Caqusau
13. Jamie Shedden
12. Andrew Stirrat
11. Luca Bardelli
10. Robert Beattie
9. Fergus Johnston

1. Jamie Drummond
2. James Malcolm
3. Calvin Henderson
4. Edward Bloodworth
5. Rory Jackson
6. Ryan Sweeney
7. Lewis McNamara
8. Blair Macpherson

Replacements
16. Alexander McGuire
17. Caleb Rae
18. Rhodri Tanner
19. Oscar Baird
20. Tim Brown
21. Adam McGowan
22. Thomas Lanni

Watsonian FC

15. Freddie Owsley
14. Lomond Macpherson
13. Ronan Kerr
12. Dom Coetzer
11. Sam Leweni
10. Jason Baggott (cc)
9. Murray Scott

1. Cole Lamberton
2. Cal Davies
3. Martin McGinley
4. Luis Ball
5. Kwagga Van Niekerk
6. Seb Cecil
7. Zander Mactaggart
8. Neil Irvine-Hess (cc)

Replacements:
16. Matthew Pritchard
17. Craig Davidson
18. Tom Gracie
19. Stu Allison
20. Josh Minty
21. Chris Bell
22. Zander Walls