They will play their first game of the tournament away to Boroughmuir Bears on Friday 30 July – kick-off 7.30pm.

Kelly’s 32-man squad is made up of five contracted FOSROC Scottish Rugby Academy players and 27 players signed by Heriot’s themselves.

The Goldenacre outfit have opted for a fairly settled squad with 75% of their squad returning from the inaugural FOSROC Super6 season.

29 of their 32 players (90%) have previously played their club or school rugby in Scotland prior to making the step up to the FOSROC Super6.

Former Howe of Fife man Iain Wilson will once again captain the squad. The back row joined the capital side in the 2015-2016 season where he was part of the Heriot’s Rugby squad that won the BT Premiership, BT Scottish Cup final and the BT Scottish Rugby Charity Shield, which gave him the motivation to play at the highest level possible.

Wilson said: “I can’t wait for the new season to get started. I’m really excited by the squad that we have, there’s been a great buzz around training. The new additions have fitted in well and have all brought that something extra.

“There’s been great excitement and enthusiasm over the past few weeks at the thought of getting back to competitive rugby. The coaching team have been excellent in creating an environment where we work hard and have a lot of fun doing it.

“The guys have put in a lot of hard graft through pre-season and we are all really looking forward to putting that hard work in to practice come the start of the FOSROC Super6 season.”

Second row Fraser Hastie makes a sideways move across Scotland to join Heriot’s Rugby from Ayrshire Bulls, in the first season of FOSROC Super6 Hastie made nine appearances for the Millbrae team. Hastie’s connections with the club comes through assistant coach Fin Gillies who coached Hastie during his time at Glasgow Hawks.

Making the step up to Super6 for the first time is winger Callum Young. Young, a Jed-Forest native was a standout player for the 2020 Scotland Club XV side, so much so he followed in the footsteps of his brothers (Lewis and Gregor) and was selected to represent Scotland 7s in Vancouver the following month.

Kelly has opted for three specialist stand-offs in his squad. Bruce Houston and Scotland U18 assistant coach Stuart Edwards who will act as a mentor for Houtson and for contracted FOSROC Scottish Rugby Academy prospect Matt Russell, whom Edwards coached in his ‘day job’ as Head of Rugby at Stewarts Melville College.

As in the first season of the FOSROC Super6, one of Heriot’s centre pairing options of Robert Kay and Cammy Hutchinson are both former pupils of George Heriot’s School.

The latter, Hutchinson, was a key player for the Goldenacre side in the inaugural FOSROC Super6 season as he showed his powerful ball carrying and line breaking skills.

The North Berwick man was offered training opportunities with Edinburgh Rugby in November 2020 and in June 2021 he made his try-scoring debut for the club against Ulster. In the same month he signed a partnership contract with the capital club.

Further notable backs in Kelly’s squad are Scotland U20 cap Rory McMichael, who holds a MA in Chinese and Economics from Edinburgh University, and winger James Spencer who recently recorded a time of 2hrs 44min and 57sec at the 2021 ASICS Windermere Marathon to earn him fourth place.

As well as stand-off Russell, four other FOSORC Academy players are aligned to Heriot’s Rugby. Fellow back, Ben Evans will put his hand up for selection at centre whilst Jamie Campbell is an option for Kelly at second row.

Dan Gamble, who hails from Kelso, is a tighthead prop, as is recent Scotland U20 cap Michael Jones who started his rugby career at Lasswade RFC.

Heriot’s Rugby Head Coach Andrew Kelly said: “We are very excited about the squad this season as we feel we have the players in place that can challenge for the FOSROC Super6 title.

“Our challenge as a coaching group is to test this group and push them as hard as we can. Our aim is to improve these players so that they can not only win matches but catch the eye of the Edinburgh and Glasgow coaches, to go on to earn professional contracts and one day pull on the Scottish jersey.

“After a hard 18 months for everyone the shining light for all players in the club is the prospect of playing the sport they love. Rugby is back and we can’t wait to get stuck in.”

Heriot’s Rugby squad to compete in the 2021 FOSROC Super6

Forwards
Andrew Nimmo
Chris Keen
Struan Cessford
Josh Scott
Michael Liness
Cameron Fenton
Adam Sinclair
Ronan Seydak
Ruairidh Leishman
Fraser Hastie
Callum Marshall
Jack Mann
Iain Wilson – CAPTAIN
Jack McClean
Jason Hill
Michael Jones*
Dan Gamble*
Jamie Campbell*

Backs
Lloyd Wheeldon
Alex Ball
Bruce Houston
Stuart Edwards
Robert Kay
Cammy Hutchison
Ross Jones
Rory McMichael
James Spencer
Callum Young
Robbie Chalmers
James Couper
Ben Evans*
Matt Russell*

*FOSROC Contracted Academy Player