Watsonians 39 Glasgow Hawks 37

A try in the 79th minute by Craig Sorbie propelled Watsonians to an extraordinary victory over last year’s Premiership champions after a pulsating contest at Myreside this afternoon.

Glasgow Hawks coaches Davy Wilson and Dave Cockburn doubtless will still be incredulous that they were vanquished, having led 24-0 midway through the first-half and with Watsonians twice short-handed with a player in the sin-bin. Yet the hosts displayed character by the bucket-full and a desire to play with pace and imagination that was a joy to behold.

What marked this game out as the best your correspondent has seen this season was the willingness of both teams to have a go. Others in Premier One set out a parsimonious stall; their intent is to stop the opposition playing. Neither Watsonians nor Hawks subscribed to that school of thought today and the result was a tremendous advert for the club game.

The hard-headed might conclude that having again given themselves some breathing space deep in the final quarter, Hawks should have closed out the game by replicating the quality of their earlier tactical kicking.

It’s debatable, however, that putting boot to ball would have quashed the home revival, such was the energy they brought to the finale.

Hawks’ intelligent opening, with the astute tactical kicking of half-backs Kenny Sinclair and Mike Adamson a feature, was rewarded with an interception try by Ricky Munday and a try brace from open-side John Fitzpatrick. Adamson goaled all three and added a penalty for a 24-0 lead in as many minutes.

Adamson at 10 certainly brings a different dimension to the Hawks attack but there will be those who contend that Murray Strang might have offered a better option in defence in the pivotal berth, especially given the damage that Sonians’ Samoan inside centre Malasia Mialo did in midfield.

His direct running and ability to offload in contact was a thorn for the Hawks and it was no surprise when he pulled back one try for the hosts while Torrie Callander was in the sin-bin. Michael Ker converted and though Adamson landed his second penalty, a try by Kian Coertze rounded off a sustained home attack and sent them into the interval in better heart at 12-27.

Immediately from the restart Mialo’s bustling break set-up a try for Andrew Skeen but that was only the cue for some sweet handling by the Hawks forwards to set up a try for Gavin Mories wide on the right.

Ker’s first penalty narrowed the gap to 22-32 and when Mialo was yellow-carded for a high tackle on Adamson just after the hour the notion surfaced that that was the end of home hopes.

Not a bit of it as No 8 Will Rowley surged in for try No 4 from Jeff Nicholson’s adroit crossfield surge and Sam Paulo’s support.

The pendulum swung again towards Hawks as Stephen Duffy’s thrust and wide pass enabled Munday and Rory Kerr to release Steve Gordon for a glorious try and a lead of 37-27.

But astonishingly Nicholson, whose athleticism attracted the attention of the Scottish Claymores in days gone by, epitomised home resolve as he ran a superb angle to hit the line at pace to dot down under the posts for Ker to convert, then gave the scoring pass for Sorbie’s winner.






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This article was posted on 4-Nov-2006, 22:53 by Hugh Barrow.