Hawks 2’s versus Watsonians 4/11/06

“At my age I’m glad to be here. Let’s face it, at my age, I’m glad to be anywhere!” – George Burns

Most of the little quotations I use are to do with American football coaches and sporting quotes in general, but this one is probably a little more appropriate for this match. Injuries, family commitments and holidays meant that no less than seven front row players were unavailable for duty this week. It affected the 1st XV but could have had a potentially catastrophic effect on the 2nd XV’s challenge to regain the league title. On Tuesday night only Chooks and Davy Stewart were available to take their places in the front row and with a requirement for 5 front row experienced players to qualify for 4 replacements – a ludicrous ruling at 2nd XV level – it was looking unlikely that we would be able to fulfil the fixture meaningfully.

However by Thursday night we had Jason Carlin willing to step in again, as he had against Aberdeen Grammar, and he was joined by Kenny Hamilton, as he had against Grammar and – Scottie Inglis! This meant that the average age was doubled in one fell swoop! However, as Kenny Baillie has already mentioned on Hawksnation, more importantly it meant that the other committed players who took the field yesterday, had a game to play. I suppose it is representative of what Davy Wilson said on Tuesday night about commitment and sums up another wee quote that Kenny Baillie reminded me about after the game yesterday from the rugby league coach, Wayne Bennett about ‘ discipline being everything in life and sport’ – discipline to turn out for training, make yourself available for matches, try your best and not let your fellow players in the team down.

Enough of the rant, on to the game. Apart from the front row, we had the usual changes forced on us. Stuart Low, Gav McDonald, Stevie Biggart, Murray Wiseman and Niall Cadell all made returns after injury or spells in the 1st. Grey and overcast conditions overhead, with a stiff breeze running diagonally, greeted us – as did a certain amount of disbelief among some of the Watsonians crowd about our aged front row.

Things did not start well. After a brief surge towards the Watsonians’ line, ball was turned over and the opposition showed their intentions early with the ball being moved swiftly to the wing inside their own 22. One tackle was evaded right on the touchline, and that allowed him room to step Sean Murray and sprint in under the posts. Two minutes played, 7-0 to Watsonians. The early setback though woke up the Hawks players and after a couple of initial setbacks in the lineout, this started to produce some good ball as Hawks played into the wind and kept the ball fairly tight. The scrum was fairly secure and the backs were running quite well with some sharp, accurate passing. Both sides were tackling very well and defences were on top. The game was shaping up to be a real tussle with Hawks coping well with the territorial advantage that ‘sonians had due to the wind.

That all changed in the 30th minute. A ruck 10m out from the Hawks line seemed to be contested vigorously but fairly and there didn’t seem to be anything contentious. No Watsonians’ player was injured, nor did any player make any protests about skulduggery. However the referee saw otherwise and deemed that Justin Reid had been stamping on an opposition player. As I saw it he was merely advancing through the ruck, in a forward motion, standing on a Watsonians’ player who was lying on the wrong side. A yellow was apparently going to be shown until the ref said Justin spoke out of turn and yellow became red. Watsonians kicked for the corner from the penalty, won the resultant lineout and rumbled over for an unconverted try. This was compounded shortly after when Jamie MacKinnon turned his ankle and had to be replaced by Niall Cadell.

You see what players are made of in adversity and there was bucketloads of character on show from Hawks after this. The backs worked tirelessly at tackle time to hold up their opponents and wait for the cavalry to arrive and the forwards were ferocious at turning over opposition ball. KB’s ‘hardmen’, Murray Wiseman and Kiddsy were to the fore as usual but everyone played a vital part in holding out until halftime. Indeed Watsonians were lucky to keep 15 men on the field when their 7 stamped on a Hawks player at a ruck and when their number 8 thumped Stevie Biggart to the floor when he tried to take a quick tap penalty. The referee saw these situations differently though.

HT – Hawks 0 Watsonians 12

Despite being a man down there was a positive approach at half time and the players sensed that even with a numerical disadvantage the game was there to be won.

The 2nd half was a tale of much effort and endeavour. Hawks would win ball, work it upfield and gain territory only for force of numbers to eventually repulse them. Jason came on for Kenny Hamilton after 10 minutes (Scottie having retired to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for a body transplant after 25 minutes of the 1st half, having tired out the ‘sonians heavyweight prop “Bad Boy”!) and Rory Hamilton came on for Murray Wiseman. Breaks for some of the forwards were going to have to be given as they expended huge amounts of energy, competing against a full pack.

23 minutes into the 2nd half and Hawks engineered a good try. Pressure and a break from Gav McDonald resulted in a lineout in the corner, but still about 12m out. A good throw, safe catch and a sharp break from Stevie Biggart gave Stu Pollock the opportunity to dive over. Seventeen minutes to go, Hawks 5 Watsonians 12

Murray Wiseman re-introduced himself to the action shortly after with an absolute belter of a hand off on the Watsonians’ 7 and this was as good an example of Hawks belligerent play as any. Fatigue however played a part in the last 5 minutes as Hawks sought the try which would have given them a well deserved draw.

This was to prove costly as with the last play of the game, Watsonians at last found a way round the brave Hawks defenders to score a try. I don’t even know if it was converted, I wasn’t looking so the final score was Hawks 5 Watsonians 17/19!

After words were said last week about discipline, this was a superbly disciplined performance in extremely difficult circumstances. To play for 50 minutes with 14 men,against the only unbeaten team in the league, away from home and keep them to 2 scores shows just what we are capable of when we concentrate. As KB said in his little ‘appreciation’, this was as fine a performance as we could have hoped for. The performance just didn’t quite get the result it deserved.

Despite this loss, the title can still be won. Watsonians were not that great and I’m quite sure they will slip up at least once before the end of the season. At this stage last year we set ourselves a target of not losing any more matches…and look what we went into the last game with the opportunity to do.

Thanks this week to all the players who turned out this week especially Jason, Kenny and Scottie. And to Gemma as usual.

This article was posted on 5-Nov-2006, 18:15 by Hugh Barrow.