Southern ​Knights hoping to bounce back from losing start to rugby’s Fosroc Super Series Sprint versus Edinburgh A against Boroughmuir Bears this weekend

​Knights kicked off their farewell campaign with a 54-19 defeat at home to Edinburgh A at Melrose’s Greenyards last Friday, a day ahead of a 26-17 win for Bears hosting Glasgow Warriors A.

Though both up against United Rugby Championship sides’ second strings, Chisholm is in no doubt that Knights got the short straw at the weekend, but he’s hopeful that their baptism of fire will prove beneficial as the season goes on.

“It was always going to be a struggle going up against full-time professionals, and though the scoreline doesn’t suggest we were in the game, even the bad bits had loads of good bits in them,” he said.

“Defensively, it was just tiny moments of switching off that cost us. You can’t afford to relax when you’re up gainst players at that level.

“Against professionals, you have got to be on it for 80 minutes and you’ve got to bring a bit of intensity, pay attention and keep focused, but that’s easier said than done when you’ve got absolute mammoths of men running at you.

“We were disappointed not to get a bonus point. I felt we probably deserved that across the whole game, but the first 20 minutes cost us.

“We possibly showed them a little bit too much respect and it took us a wee while to get into it, probably until half-time.”

Contrasting his side’s fortunes at the weekend with Boroughmuir’s, Chisholm said: “It was funny the difference in mindsets shown by the two professional clubs.

“One to ten for Edinburgh were absolute units, really quality players, most of whom have played URC rugby, and that was the big difference between them and Glasgow. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to play Glasgow as it all counts for the table.”

The hosts’ tries were scored by replacement hooker Finlay Scott, left-winger Ethan McVicar and full-back Callum Grieve, with Grieve adding a conversion.

Making up the rest of their starting XV were Sandy Watt on the right wing, Jeremy Civil at outside centre, Ewan Greenlaw at inside centre, Gregor McNeish at fly-half, Callum Davidson at scrum-half, Marcus Rhodes at No 8, captain Monroe Job at openside flanker, Allan Ferrie at blindside flanker, Angus Ruciman and Michael Badenhorst as locks, Dan Gamble at tighthead prop, Jack Dobie at loosehead and Marcus Brogan at hooker.

Scott’s fellow substutures were Angus McGregor, Zen Szwagrzak, Dylan Cockburn, Ross Wolfenden, Garry Young, William Ferrie and Adam Hall.

Touching down for their visitors were left-winger Finn Douglas with a hat-trick, lock Rob Carmichael, scrum-half Charlie Shiel, No 8 Ben Muncaster, hooker Patrick Harrison and full-back Jack Brown, with fly-half Cammy Scott adding five conversions and his replacement Isaac Coates another two.

Saturday’s game against head coach Graham Shiel’s Bears at the Greenyards kicks off at 3pm, and looking ahead to it, Chisholm added: “We’re excited about having a go at them and the Edinburgh game will have set us up really well.”