ANNIESLAND JINX STRIKE AGAIN............

And so the dream ended............

Hawks 11 Ayr 8; Heriots 26 Currie 39..........

Those two scorelines tell the story of how Ayr’s title hopes vanished at Old Anniesland but they get nowhere near capturing the drama that enfolded over Friday and Saturday.

Onfield, the match against Hawks went to the final play before Ayr went down, knowing that only a win would keep any hopes of taking their title challenge to the final match against Heriots.

Off the field, illness prevented coach Craig Redpath from being on the touchline and although stand in coach Jim Henderson did an admirable job, the absence of the man who has been the driving force in Ayr’s success must have had an impact.

Full back Johnny McClung failed to shake off an injury picked up last week against Melrose and the re-jigging of the back three could not fail to have an unsettling effect although none of those involved, Cammy Taylor moving to full back and Ryan Holland coming off the subs bench to start on the wing, let the side down.

Indeed, after a thundering start which saw Hawks go 5-0 ahead with a Nick Cox try after only seven minutes, came the incident which could have changed the game. In hot pursuit of a deft Nick Lavelle chip ahead, Pierluigi Gentile was taken out by a John McClay challenge which, although it meant the Hawks hooker was injured and was unable to continue, could have resulted in at least a yellow card if not a more serious punishment.

Ayr hit back and after a Lavelle penalty had opened their account, a finely worked try which saw Evan Kellow deliver a beautifully weighted pass to put Ryan Holland in at the corner gave Ayr an 8-5 lead at half time and a bucketful of hope.

They held that lead until the defining moment in the sixtieth minute when Ewen Logan was yellow carded, some might say harshly, and Mike Adamson came off the bench for Hawks. Before Logan had served his ten minutes, Adamson had landed two crucial penalties to give Hawks a lead they were not to relinquish.

In the final play of the game Ayr declined a simple kick at goal since a draw would have meant only a mathematical prolonging of the obvious such was Currie’s points differential advantage. They went for the short penalty which took them to within feet of the Hawks line but when the ball was whipped out, a fumble by Richard McCallum signalled the end of the contest. It was cruel luck for the young stand off that the game in that fashion since his performance showed just how far his game has come since he was drafted into the squad in September.

The match was a fragmented affair with a host of mistakes on both sides and although Hawks coach David Wilson said after the game “I knew that Ayr would struggle to live with our pace” that hardly took into account that his speedsters Rory and Jamie Kerr and Max Evans had to contend with a defence prepared to tackle until they dropped or until the vaunted pacemen dropped the ball which they did with some frequency. The fact that Hawks only try came from a prop with his front row colleague Gavin Mories setting up the score was significant because for once Ayr were unable to establish a dominance up front and with their customary momentum thwarted by a feisty Hawks pack, there was little to fall back on.

“Towards the end of the first half we were really in the game but in the second half we never really got going. All credit to Hawks, they closed us down and I have to say we are bitterly disappointed” said Jim Henderson. “It has been a tremendous run, our goal today was a win which was why we didn’t take the kicks at goal because a draw was no use to us but it wasn’t to be.”

So, as a league campaign which has brought a huge amount of pleasure and excitement to their supporters and not least to your correspondent comes to a close, to the players who have given their all in a memorable effort, I think I would speak for all who have followed them by simply saying-thanks.

Next week, we will have a look back, a look forward and a look behind the scenes at Millbrae.

Ron Evans

This article was posted on 28-Dec-2006, 19:24 by Hugh Barrow.