Highland’s National Division 1 clash away to title challengers Biggar this Saturday has been postponed.
Davie Carson’s north side were looking to bounce back from successive league losses against Watsonian and Melrose against the division’s second-placed team.
However, the fixture at Hartree Mill has been postponed on safety grounds due to Covid-19. A new date for the game will be announced by the Scottish Rugby Union in due course.
In 2020, Biggar were the uncatchable front-runners in National 1 when the pandemic hit and the decision was made to null and void the campaign, denying the South Lanarkshire club a place in the Premiership.
Highland are currently seventh in the league, but just four points adrift of fourth-placed Melrose.
Their next first-team fixture will now be next Saturday at home to Cartha Queen’s Park, who are third from bottom but with several games in hand against sides around them.
🦅🏉💚❤️FIXTURE UPDATE:
Unfortunately the @BiggarRFC v Highland RFC match has to be postponed on saftey grounds due to COVID-19. ☹️
The match will be rescheduled, and the new date will be advised in due course. pic.twitter.com/VDABOgP9qM
— Highland Rugby Club 🦅 (@HighlandRFC) February 10, 2022
Three competitive Highland teams
Highland are celebrating their centenary year, but it won’t have a silver lining for the first-team.
For head coach Carson though, having three competitive teams, two of which have their sights set on glory, shows the strength of the club overall.
He said: “We don’t want to let our season fizzle out. We want to get as many points as we can.
“There are loads of points still to pick up. We will be fighting as long as we can.
“Our seconds and thirds are still in with shouts for their leagues, so looking at the bigger picture, the club is in a great place.
“We have a big player pool at Highland, having added another team this season. Most clubs are losing teams and we’ve added one.
“All these players are willing to fight to try and get into the team above. Aberdeen Grammar in the Premiership have struggled at times to get a second team out, but here in the north we’ve managed to get three teams out and are competitive in three leagues, which is great. We’re doing something right, which is great, especially in the centenary year.”
Positives to be gleaned from last loss
Highland’s last outing was a 34-12 loss at Melrose on January 29 when a slow start cost them and a better second half heartened them.
Carson is sure there are lessons to be learned from what was another demanding match at this level.
He added: “We didn’t get off to the best of starts and Melrose were by far the better team in the first half.
“It wasn’t a case of our heads going down, but they ran in four or five really good tries.
“We had a big chat at half-time and came out and turned it on. We won the second half 12-5, played some great rugby and scored a good couple of tries.
“You see some teams lose another 30-40 in the second half, but we came back from 29-0 down to make it 34-12, so we take the positives from that.
“We watched a video analysis with the players last week and we looked at where we conceded two or three soft tries again. There were also spells where we could have scored more had we shown just a bit more composure.
“It’s just really about keeping our focus at times against the top teams. They had a couple of Super6 guys back in their side as well, which gave them experience, which we don’t quite have at the moment.
“We are learning at this level every week and our guys are getting more experienced all the time. It’s just a case of harnessing all that and to keep moving forward.”
