TOP English club Harlequins will join South Africa's Western Province and the Swedish national team at next year's Aberdeen Asset Management Melrose Sevens.

The ever-popular Co-optimists are also lined up as a guest side for the 2017 event.

And the 24-team draw will be made up of the top clubs in Scotland.

Melrose president Trevor Jackson told us: “The event will be a 24-team tournament and we look forward to welcoming Harlequins, Co-optimists, the national side from Sweden, and Western Province as our guest teams for 2017.

"I am also delighted to announce that Melrose Sevens 2017 is to be sponsored by Aberdeen Asset Management, and we are immensely grateful for the continued support of Martin Gilbert and his team.

"With the World Rugby series increasing in popularity each year, and the excitement of the British Silver Medal success in the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Rugby Sevens is now a global phenomenon. Since its inception in Melrose in 1883, the seven-a-side game has reached corners of the globe that have never before embraced rugby."

The 2017 Melrose Sevens tournament will take place on April 8 at The Greenyards.

As well as the hosts, other local clubs to go into the draw are Gala, Hawick, Jed-Forest, Kelso, Peebles and Selkirk.

Sevens convener Ian Cooper added: “The 2017 tournament looks to be an exciting programme of sevens rugby.

"With a good geographic mix, we feel it is going to be a very open tournament with any of the competing teams in with a chance of winning.

"A national team from Sweden continues the club's policy of widening our sevens participation experience even further."

Member of the successful Scotland Sevens squad helped launch the tournament this week at the Greenyards.

Rugby chiefs believe their victory at Twickenham, along with the silver medals brought back by Team GB from the Rio Olympics, has helped raise the short game's profile.

Scottish Rugby President Rob Flockhart told us: "One of the unquestionable highlights of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games was the return of rugby union to the Olympic family and the sheer joy which surrounded Fiji’s first ever Olympic medal.

"The fact it was won in rugby sevens was so fitting.

“In Scotland we are rightly proud that an idea which was conceived and first saw the light of day in Melrose, has gained such global popularity.

"And how proud the Melrose club must be, too, to see three of their own – Calum MacRae, Scott Wight and Mark Robertson – in the vanguard of sevens success in the last year, MacRae as coach, Wight as captain and Robertson as player, as Scotland won a World Series tournament for the first time, then Mark Robertson being selected as part of the GB team that won a silver medal in Rio."

The Aberdeen Asset Management Melrose Sevens will be supervised by a team of seven top Scottish referees supported by 12 referee assistants and in-goal-area judges to be appointed by the Borders Referees Society Appointments Panel from qualified referees from within the Borders area

Melrosewill again host their popular Junior Coaching Clinic, now in its 34th year, on the morning of the Sevens.

The clinic is set to attract in excess of 100 youngsters under the age of 14 from clubs and schools throughout Scotland who will be put through their paces by some of Scotland’s top coaches under the direction of Rob Moffat and sponsored by Erskine Stewart’s Melville Schools.

Following the coaching session the youngsters will be entertained to lunch and attend the sevens as guests of Melrose RFC

Tickets for the 134th Melrose Sevens are now on sale.