Glasgow Hawks 7 : Watsonians 21

And that stark scoreline explains why Hawks are now propping up the table.

My mother used to drone with monotonous regularity "after the lord
mayors' carriage..." implying that a wee guy with a dustpan and brush
would be clearing up after the horses. Hawks now seem to be wielding
the dustpan and brush.

Plenty of excuses can be made, along the lines of Hawks having turned
over the core of their forwards but, to be honest, that isn't a good
enough excuse for the performance on Saturday.

Watsonians have serious title hopes for the coming season. They
finished last season well, and have spent money again for this season.
The performance they put in on Saturday just wasn't deserving of the 21
points they scored, which perhaps is even more worrying for Hawks.

What can the commited supporter take from Saturday's game?

Well, both MYF and I thought that Murray Strangs performance justified
his place. Kicks out of hand were, on the whole effective and he tried
to mix up the options. Kenny Sinclair must have built some confidence
and Steven Duffy put in a committed performance. Mike Adamson tried hard
when he wears the 13 shirt and, to be fair to him, nothing is too hot or
too heavy for him, he just doesn't have the raw power for centre. Kenny
Baillie and Stuart Lowe had a torrid time as Watsonians appeared to have
identified them as weak under the Garryowen, it seemed an unjustified
tactic to me.

Probably the biggest problem based on saturday's performance is that the
forwards just weren't at the game for the day.

The kiwi who accompanied me to the game, a fit and able forward himself,
pointed out how, far too often, the backline were commited to the
breakdown, often piled under it, while the forwards were standing off in
the back line.

It's the wrong way round lads. The bludgeon goes in at the breakdown
while the rapier is held back for the killing sweep.

Combine that with a lineout that was regularly getting robbed and, as
the headline says, we were lucky to get nil. It was an excellent
individual break by Ritchie McKnight, on for Kenny Sinclair, who managed
to run behind the posts and make the goal easy that saved the whitewash.

It was suggested, facetiously to me at half time that the coach was
introducing the forwards to each other. It's hard to smile when you
want to punch someone but I could see what he meant.

There was some good, individual effort from the forwards, Cox in
particular; Fitzpatrick seemed to be getting about too. They have to
gain some cohesion though. The sad fact is that forward power is
something that's developed over time. Power is easy, it's craft that
takes time to nurture.

Perhaps next week there will be the chance of putting some of the
lessons learned into effect. No-one learns anything from success and
based on the way things are at the moment there's a lot of learning to come.

Back to the studio for a report on some football match or other with a
bunch of whale wranglers.

regards

The Green Phantom

This article was posted on 6-Sep-2006, 19:19 by Hugh Barrow.