Co-head coaches Scott Wight and Iain Chisholm’s Greenyards side fought back from being 35-12 down at half-time away to Edinburgh Academical to edge out their hosts by 38-35, but theirs was the only one of three trips from the Borders to the capital to yield a victory. Selkirk and Kelso both lost at the top end of the A68, by 60-26 at Watsonians and 59-31 at Heriot’s respectively, and Hawick were handed a 93-0 hiding at home to Ayr, taking the number of points they’ve conceded to the table-toppers this season past the 150 mark, having lost the reverse fixture on the west coast by 59-7 in November. Melrose’s win lifts them up one place in the table to sixth, on 50 points from 20 fixtures, swapping places with head coach Graham Hogg’s Hawick, now seventh, on 45 from 19. Selkirk and Kelso remain as they were, respectively fifth on 55 from 19 and eighth on 41 from 20. Melrose host Hawick this Saturday and they’ll be hoping to make amends for a 36-17 defeat in the reverse fixture at Mansfield Park a month prior, and Selkirk and Kelso are at home too, to basement side Musselburgh and fourth-placed Currie Chieftains, all 3pm kick-offs. Melrose’s try-scorers at the capital’s Raeburn Place were outside-centre Corey Goldsbrough, full-back Morgan Gabe, scrum-half Bruce Colvine, right-winger Connor Spence and replacements Finlay Sinclair and Hamish Weir, with fly-half Keiran Clark and inside-centre Roly Brett adding two conversions apiece. Touching down for head coach Iain Berthinussen’s third-from-bottom hosts were Cole Imrie, George Davis, Cameron Macdonald at the double and Tom Drennan, with Vincent Hart converting all five of those tries. Chisholm was delighted by his side’s second-half fightback, telling the Offside Line rugby website: “The nature of this group is that we don’t get distracted by the scoreboard too often. “It was always just about process, chipping away and getting the next score. “We needed half-time to reassess where we were and what we were doing well. At scrum-time, we were dominant but not at the maul. “Our strength is our defence and the ability to get off the line. We didn’t see that in the first half – we just allowed Accies to run at us and build momentum. “Sometimes when the carrot isn’t working, you’ve got to get the stick out. They are great boys and they reacted well.” Selkirk’s tries at Edinburgh’s Myreside Stadium were scored by right-winger Josh Welsh, No 8 Kieran Westlake, outside-centre Andrew Grant-Suttie and replacement Blake Cullen, with substitute Ethan Wilson adding two conversions and scrum-half Hugo Alderson another. Scoring tries against head coach Gordon Henderson’s visitors were Stu Allison, Dom Coetzer, Freddie Owsley, Josh Minty at the double, Lomond Macpherson with a hat-trick, Cal Davies and Chris Bell, with Jason Baggott kicking five conversions. Henderson was disappointed to see his side’s push for a top-four play-off place all but ended as their hosts confirmed theirs, saying: “If you let teams win the gain-line battle easily in this league, then they will hurt you, and Watsonians certainly hurt us in the first half. “They are a good side and there were a couple of interceptions, but we let them get onto the front foot too easily and our first-up tackling just wasn’t good enough. “That 40 minutes wasn’t a true reflection of us as a side and that’s disappointing. I said to the guys at the break to go out and be ambitious in the second half and show a bit of fight and we did that, but the game was gone by then.” Inside-centre Frankie Robson, blindside flanker Ashton Asante, hooker Nick Barnes and full-back Archie Barbour scored tries for co-head coaches Bruce McNeil and Nikki Walker’s Kelso team at the capital’s Goldenacre playing fields, with Dwain Patterson converting all four and also kicking a penalty. Heriot’s try-scorers were George Coull with a hat-trick, Sinjin Broad, Michael Liness, Ruairidh Leishman, Kenta Kutsuna, Callum Anderson and Struan Cessford, with Ross Jones adding six conversions and Kutsuna another. Walker was pleased with the fighting spirit shown by his side to secure a point, saying: “We knew that if we didn’t defend well, we would concede a lot of points. It was like that in the first half, but we showed a lot of character in the second. “A bonus point at the end after being pretty disappointing at the start is not a bad result.” Ayr’s tries were scored by Tom Lanni, Jamie Shedden and Fergus Johnston twice, Ben Frame with a hat-trick, Ed Bloodworth, Bobby Beattie, Jamie McAughtrie, James Malcolm, Ryan Sweeney and Tim Brown, with Scott Watson adding six conversions, Beattie two and Luca Bardelli one. Hawick captain Shawn Muir was disappointed at the gulf in quality on display at Mansfield Park against their former Fosroc Super Series visitors, saying: “Yes, they’re the best side in Scotland but it’s not acceptable playing for Hawick and shipping that kind of score. “We’ve just got to take it on the chin. There are still three games to play in the premiership so we need to bounce back.”