Glasgow Hawks​33 GHA​14

Hawks​33
Tries​Bachurzewski 27, Milne 32, Smart 38, R Beattie 80
Con​Smart 38, White 80
Pen​White 47, 54, 78

GHA​14
Tries​Dunn 45​
Pen​Lang (6, 12, 52,

The first Hawks match of 2014 saw The West Cup Final come to Old Anniesland with southside rivals GHA as the opponents.
The mood in the ground was tempered with thoughts of Sonny Kiernan and his family. Sonny had been a popular player in the Hawks youth set up had sadly passed away last week at a tragically young age. There was a minutes silence in his memory and the thoughts of all in the ground were with his parents and his sister.
Hawks began the game in hesitant fashion with early drives at the line ending with unforced errors which allowed GHA to clear their lines. The men from the soo’side were eager to lap these errors up and force Hawks onto the back foot. Hawks response to GHA pressure was to concede couple of penalties early in the first period which Scott Lang goaled with ease in the 6th and 12th minutes respectively.
Early penalty awards to Hawks offered let respite as Hawks lacked a recognised place kicker and were frustrated when offered what would have normally been goal scoring opportunities’.
Hawks stuck to their task and took the visitors on in the tight play. The pack gaining ground the hard way but time and again GHA’s defenders were able to halt the forward effort as the game moved toward the half hour mark. Hawks were close, but the reward seemed distant until Polish International prop Craig Bachurzewski burst on to the ball from short distance. Dan Smart was unlucky with the conversion but Hawks were back in the match.
Within 5 minutes Hawks burst into the lead. Bachurzewski, who was on fire, burst through the GHA cover only to be caught just short of the line. The ball was quickly recycled allowing David Milne to go over for the second try of the afternoon.
Hawks now scented blood and applied further pressure, Dan Smart went over under the posts and in the space of a little more than 10 minutes Hawks had scored 17 points and had an 11 point lead going into half-time.
If Hawks thought that the match was over as a contest they were to be rudely awakened, GHA started taking the game to the home side from the kick off and brought the scores close after 45 minutes when Dominic Dunn went over after a well worked move which had blown the home defence wide open. Lag was unfortunate to miss the conversion but GHA were back in the game and Hawks looked nervous.
Andy White took over the kicking duties and restored part of the lead in 47 minutes with a good penalty. But Lang pegged it back for GHA five minutes later.
Hawks then started to wear the Southside men and White’s accuracy with the boot saw Hawks edge a further 6 points ahead as the clock headed towards 80 minutes.
Then something strange happened as Smart put the ball over the heads of the midfield and the ball bobbled toward the visitor’s goal line. Lang gathered and tried to initiate a counter attack but he was met with a furious tackle by Jack Steele. Steele knocked the GHA full-back into the goal line and as Lang hit the sod he failed to touch the ball down and was dislodged. Robert Beattie was close at hand to pounce on the error and with White adding the extras the Cup win was secured in emphatic fashion. All that was left to do was for Andy Linton to receive the cup and the first silverware of 2013-14 was secured.

This article was posted on 11-Jan-2014, 18:39 by Hugh Barrow.