SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS
Sun 13 Nov 2005

Hungry Hawks are out of sight

Iain Morrison


IN THE first 30 years of the Scottish club championship the title only ever left the Borders seven times in all. The Edinburgh clubs that pilfered it seemed to realise that they had it on sufferance, since none of them, with the sole exception of Heriot's, held on to their position as the biggest bark in the kennel for more than a year before the title was whisked back to the southern strongholds whence it came.

Times are changing and one club from outwith Scotland's traditional rugby heartland are asserting their dominance over the club game as never before. Ahead of this weekend's results, with 11 matches still to play, Glasgow Hawks are already unbackable favourites to finish in pole position. Despite being just eight years old, Hawks were the first Glasgow club ever to win the title back in 2004 and they look set to make more history by being the first club outside the Borders to win a hat-trick of victories.


Of course they may slip up between now and the finish line, but if they do it will be a pratfall to rival anything Charlie Chaplin managed.

Ahead of this weekend, at the halfway point in the race, the Glasgow side had won 11 from 11, scored 387 points while conceding 167 and grabbed a four-try bonus point in all but two of their outings. They had a points difference of +220 (the next best is +92) and they have a healthy 14-point lead over second-placed Watsonians whom they have already beaten in Edinburgh. Oh, and they have achieved all this while playing their best rugby in no more than 20- minute bursts.

This success has come without resort to spending much money; whatever incentives Hawks do offer players, it is nothing like as much as most of their rivals, and they use, almost exclusively, home-grown talent. Hawks date back to 1997 because, in the early days of professionalism, mergers were an obvious response to the professional threat. Edinburgh Accies held tentative talks with Heriot's that went no further but Hawks actually happened.

The entire venture was the brainchild of the current chairman Brian Simmers, himself a Scotland fly-half between 1965-71. Simmers represented the Glasgow Accies side of things and Kenny Hamilton fronted for GHK but the driving force to merge the two clubs evidently came from the players.

"It was 1997 at the start of professionalism and various players were being offered contracts by English clubs," said Simmers. "So we were just responding to the need to keep our best players in Scotland.

"The original aim was to create a very strong Glasgow side because Glasgow rugby has not been too clever over the years, although GHK had threatened. West of Scotland had done well but as we got promotion in our first year I think that West went down leaving us as the only Glasgow side in Premier One.

"We wanted Hawks to be a very strong side to go into European competition but under Jim Telfer that did not happen. So we did the next best thing and became a very strong club side and we did that very effectively."

Simmers confirms that the clubs also had exploratory talks with West at the time of the merger back in 1997 but he denies that the H.A.W.K.S. name came from a clever amalgamation of High School, Accies, West and KelvinSide.

"There has been a bit of kidology about the name. We had talked to West but the main thrust had always been GHK and Accies. By the time we had those initials to incorporate we were pretty much stuck with Hawks." At least the talks with West had one happy outcome because their club secretary, Hugh Barrow, moved to Hawks where he has been ever since.

The new club adopted GHK's Premier Two place and won that championship at the first attempt. They also beat Kelso to lift the Scottish Cup and, as the men from Old Anniesland never tire of telling, they got the better of Toulouse in early European competition.

Simmers had initially seen Hawks as a fully professional club but the pro-teams won the day and the SRU's funding. It is worth noting that the sort of structure envisaged by Simmers back in 1997 is almost identical to the community-based, business-led partnerships that are being bounced around right now by various interested parties.

Simmers has always been among Murrayfield's most vocal critics for spending a huge percentage of their budget on a tiny minority of their players and the years have done little to ease his anger.

"Premier Club rugby was excluded from any Murrayfield thinking," he says. "We now have a major problem in reviving it. We need to bring back some of the buzz and excitement and cross-border rugby is one way to do it but I spoke to Freddie MacLeod who said it wasn't possible.

"Hawks have held talks with Neath but it requires a Union-led approach to action it and there is no point in having a one-off game. I put a proposal in for next year that would see four pools of [amateur] clubs from Scotland, Wales and Ireland play each other on international weekends with a semi-final and a final. With Premier One down to ten clubs next year, the leagues should be over by early January which leaves space for a cross-border contest.

"Certainly Hawks proves that the bottom end of the professional game is not much better than the top end of the amateur game although obviously the pro-player is much fitter."

Hawks' success has cost them any number of players lost to the professional ranks throughout the years, from the original full-back Glenn Metcalfe to the injury-prone prop Euan Murray and almost 30 others from the club's inception. Nothing succeeds like success and the club have had no problem replacing last year's stars with next year's, a process that has led to the charge of poaching. more important is the fact that Hawks are, for the moment, the only Glasgow side playing top-flight rugby. Still, west-coast rivals Ayr probably have a bigger budget and three Premier Two teams, GHA, Cartha and Hillhead/Jordan Hill, all threaten to spoil that comfortable monopoly in the coming years.

"When the going gets tough, Hawks go skiing," was a favourite line from an earlier era but the recruitment of Peter Wright as coach in 2003 was the catalyst that "persuaded" the players to reach their potential.

Simmers said that the Hawks were an attempt to get away from the old school tie associated with the two constituent clubs and in the former blacksmith, and Scotland and British Lions prop, he finally found the living, breathing and blaspheming antidote to private school complacency.Needless to say, their success also stems from a unique position which allows Hawks to attract the best and most ambitious local players who see the club as a stepping stone into the pro-game.

Scotland's inside centre this afternoon, Andy Henderson, arrived at Hawks from West of Scotland and quickly moved on to Glasgow after just one year.

He was replaced by Tom Philip, who came from Edinburgh Accies before signing pro-forms with Edinburgh. Philip, in turn, was replaced by Graeme Morrison, now with Glasgow, and more recently Iain Kennedy, who originated at Lenzie and arrived via GHA. This conveyor belt of talent in the Hawks midfield is mirrored in other positions and, provided it continues, so will Hawks' phenomenal success.

It must be worrying for their rivals that this season Hawks have almost no-one obviously headed for the professional ranks but still their grip on the league is tighter than ever. The club may not have fulfilled their original mission to champion the professional game in Scotland but, if that was unavoidable failure, Glasgow Hawks have been overwhelmingly successful where it matters most.

Glasgow Hawks - A brief history in time

1866: Glasgow Accies are founded.

1884: Glasgow HSFP are founded.

1888: Kelvinside Accies are founded.

1919: Glasgow High purchase Old Anniesland.

1982: Glasgow High and Kelvinside Accies amalgamate to form GHK.

1997: Glasgow Accies and GHK amalgamate to form Hawks and win Premier Two title and Scottish Cup in their first year.

1998: Hawks beat Toulouse.

1999: Kelvinside Academy sell off pitches for Rangers' training ground.

2000: Hawks lose cup final to Boroughmuir.

2001: GHK and Glasgow Accies return to the national leagues and both become Hawks "associate" clubs.

2002: Hawks lose the cup final to Hawick after extra time.

2004: Hawks win the Premier One title, the cup and the 2nd XV Championship in former Scotland prop Peter Wright's first year as coach.

2005: Hawks retain their Premier One title and 2nd XV Championship.

2005: Former club captain David Wilson joins as coach from GHA.

IAIN MORRISON'S HAWKS DREAM TEAM:

15 Glenn Metcalfe; 14 Derek Stark, 13 Graeme Morrison, 12 Tom Philip, 11 Rory Lamont; 10 Tommy Hayes, 9 Cammy Little/Kenny Sinclair;

1 Gordon McIlwham, 2Chris Docherty/Fergus Thomson, 3 Euan Murray, 4 Steve Begley, 5 Richard Maxton, 6 Gordon Mackay (pictured left), 7 Fergus Wallace, 8 Mark Sitch.

This article was posted on 13-Nov-2005, 09:27 by Hugh Barrow.