Glasgow Hawks 38-14 Ayr

Classiest display of season. Hawks showing great attacking intent from the start. Ayr always threatened with a pacy backline , but 1st half dominated by 4 very different Hawks tries. 5mins in turnover ball moved wide and when switched back Mikey Martin delivered perfect cross-kick for Mark Taylor to pluck from air and start his hat-trick. A mis-judged kick off allowed Ayr to regather and in a flash old-Hawk Deano Kelbrick floated a miss pass to the winger who left the defence standing as he finished brilliantly from 40m. Hawks got lineout going well, and another great take by Hoggy allowed Scott Rodgers to control the drive and dive over line, in slow motion! 12-7
Aggressive defence been a feature recently and Ayr pressurised by backs line-speed resulted in Tails taking interception and sprinting for line. Could have been mistaken , but did he stop, let the cover nearly catch him before finishing the job? Eyes playing tricks!
Next one straight off training field as ball moved wide from line-out and Jonno Wright ripped thru' defence before Franco finished in corner after great support . 26-7 HT.
Ayr always looked dangerous and had some powerful forwards who made an impact early in 2nd half, included getting upper hand at line-out for next 15mins. Deserved line-out try brought score back to 26-14 and one more would have brought some nerves to Hawks touch-line. No need to worry when you have a prop who can sprint 40m beating Ayr's speedy winger to corner. Great turnover ball on right was moved rapidly to left wing and Tank Williamson gave a great impersonation of Tails as he sat down Ayr's hooker and started the long journey to the line!! Not sure if he has lost his membership to front row union?! 31-14 after 65mins.
No chance to draw breath as straight from ko Hawks attacked and from quick ruck ball Mike Martin flicked a deft pass to Tails and hat-trick was complete. Mike added 4th conv of day for final 38-14. Outstanding team performance, great entertainment.
How good was this performance? Best to ask Davie Paton, "hard to beat" was his quote , or something similar!

This article was posted on 31-Oct-2012, 07:32 by Hugh Barrow.