Kelso

Kelso RFC begin this Scottish Premiership campaign as a club still finding its feet back at the top after rebuilding through the lower tiers: relegated to the third division in 2016, they won National League Division One in 2022–23 to earn their way back among the Premiership's leading sides.

Poynder Park has held 3,000 for a club whose real weight sits in April and May rather than the league table. Kelso have won their own sevens nineteen times and taken the Melrose Sevens on seven occasions, results that count for more locally than most weekend fixtures. That circuit runs through the whole of the Borders, and Kelso's name recurs on the honours boards at Jed-Forest, Selkirk, Gala, Hawick and half a dozen other grounds besides.

The club grew out of the town in 1876 and took the nickname 'the Quins' from an earlier name, Kelso Harlequins, which the women's and youth sections still carry. Black-and-white hooped jerseys and red socks have stayed constant through everything since. The two Premiership titles, in 1987–88 and 1988–89, remain the club's peak in the league game; a pair of Scottish Cup final defeats followed in the late 1990s, to Glasgow Hawks and then to Gala.

Gala and Selkirk supply the fixtures that matter most, the Border derby carrying a history that ordinary league points cannot. Ross Ford came through at Kelso before winning caps for Scotland.

For now the task is straightforward: hold a place among the Premiership's top sides and close the gap the years outside it opened up.