GHK v Irvine Match Report

GHK’s penultimate home league game of the season kicked off at 5pm, under the bright Old Anniesland floodlights, as part of a double header following Hawks’ disappointing loss to Hawick. It was to be hoped that GHK would show greater composure with the ball in hand than had been evodent from the Hawks’ side.

The temperature was dropping ever closer to zero as the game commenced and there was still a stiff breeze blowing towards the pavilion which GHK chose to play with in the first half. GHK gathered the ball from Irvine’s kick off but immediately turned it over and were soon penalised - a feature of the game that was to reoccur with alarming regularity throughout. with the GHK team, failing to get on the referee’s wavelength, leading to numerous opportunities for Irvine to gain distance and possession.

From the resulting kick to touch Irvine drove the cleanly caught line out and charged over for the opening score which they also converted. Two minutes played GHK 0 Irvine 7.

The first fifteen minutes were dominated by Irvine with GHK living off scraps and having to defend with their usual vigour. Slowly the home side worked their way back into the game and into the visitors’ half and a series of penalties within kicking distance – with Irvine warned for repeated infringement – gave Andy Fleming the chance to put GHK narrowly into the lead as he succeeded with 3 out of 4 attempts to establish a two point lead for GHK after half an hour.

Handling moves were still the exception but GHK came very close to opening the scoring when full back Tony Herron was tackled into touch just short of the line.

Some big hits were going in from both sides with GHK’s captain Danny Hoffman, amongst others, prominent in defence.

GHK finally breached the Irvine defence when a clearance kick was fielded and fed to Scott Eadie, who used his pace and strength to cut through from 40 metres for a fine try which Andy Fleming converted for a 16 – 7 lead at half time.

The wind had, by this time, dropped somewhat but Irvine didn’t exploit it to the extent that GHK were not put under as much pressure in the second half as might have been expected, although Irvine put together some good attacking moves and several of their backs made good breaks but, yet again, GHH’s excellent defence was to prove the decisive factor with each side limited to a penalty apiece in the second half to leave GHK with a 19 – 10 advantage at full time leaving them still unbeaten in the 16 league games played.

Again this was a determined and wholehearted team performance with every player contributing. George Oommen brought his experience to bear throughout; Fraser Hastie’s youthful energy saw him involved to good effect with one strong run and offload particularly noteworthy; as mentioned already Danny Hoffman led by example; and the team persisted with their handling game even though some of the execution fell short of the desired level.

The league now comes down to two games: away to East Kilbride on 3 March and at home to Annan the following week. Amazingly, GHK could win both of these games, end the season with a 100% record and not win the league! This is down to Marr’s great effort in continuing to pick up more bonus points than GHK which sees them 7 points behind GHK but with one more game to play. So, if (and many other scenarios are possible!) GHK win their remaining two games but don’t achieve a bonus point in either game and Marr win their three games, achieving a bonus point in each, both teams would finish the league with 77 points and Marr would, almost certainly, have a better points differential. But let’s not worry about that - at least not too much!

It was again, great to see so many loyal GHK supporters out to support the team on Saturday, despite the late kick off and freezing conditions. It will help the team tremendously if this level of support is maintained in the remaining games. Full details will, of course, be published here in advance of these games.

Meantime the focus switches to The RBS West Regional Shield final against Kilmarnock from National Division One which, as reported, takes place next Saturday, 25 February, with a 3pm kick off at New Annieslamd, courtesy of our neighbours, Glasgow Accies, who are kindly allowing us use of their main pitch with Hawks having a vital home match at OA. Again, let’s make an effort to have a big crowd out to cheer on the boys to what would be a great trophy win.
This article was posted on 20-Feb-2012, 00:09 by Ronnie Gourley.



             

This article was posted on 20-Feb-2012, 21:16 by Hugh Barrow.