West of Scotland 17 Glasgow Hawks 19

Burnbrae this afternoon was the backdrop to a timely reminder of
what's good about rugby as Glasgow Hawks booked their place – mark you
only just – in next month's National Cup Final at Murrayfield.

There they will face a team from a lower division and judging by the
handful West of Scotland proved today, then Edinburgh Accies – who
have won promotion from Premier Division 2 and who added the scalp of
Boroughmuir 38-14 in their semi-final to those of Currie and Hawick –
will approach that contest with eager anticipation.

Hawks coach David Wilson had the good grace to acknowledge at
full-time that in many respects this was West's day and knows his pack
will face a searching examination from Accies.

What a show West put on off the park. There was a crowd of more than
1,000, animated and involved, with their second and third XV giving a
raucous and good-natured vocal lead. Everywhere you looked around the
ground there were families. There were plenty of weel-kent faces too,
such as the former West, Scotland and Lions prop Sandy Carmichael. And
the over-whelming emotion of the day – fun.

Now the cynics might point to the final scoreboard but West all but
pulled if off on the park too.

Their coach, John Beattie reasoned: "We were never going to win it,
but, gee, we came close. We did play with a lot of pride. These guys
simply went out and tried to have fun with their friends."

Today's initial salvoes suggested an upset might be looming. Inside
the first minute the Gordon Bulloch/Guy Perrett lineout combination
that's been 15 years in the moulding was the prelude to a home driving
maul. Hawks infringed and a penalty to touch set up the territory from
which, from a subsequent lineout take by Scott MacKechnie, Bulloch
blazed away on the narrow side, allowing his lively front-row
colleague Elliot McLaren to bulldoze over for the opening try.

West, enjoyed the early territory, although they were being asked to
make a lot of tackles and when Murray Strang's intelligent clearance
kick saw Rory Kerr win a penalty through his belligerent follow-up,
the visitors sniffed an opening.

Sure enough, off a counter-attack from a stray West clearance, John
Fitzpatrick, in classic back-row mode, supported on the inside for
Steve Gordon to send his flanker in for the equalising try. Mike
Adamson converted and Hawks led 7-5 after 14 minutes.

Hawks got continuity going and profited as Strang's break set up
Gordon for their second try, Adamson again adding the extras, and,
before the break, makeshift lock Niall Caddell had crashed over for
their third, prop Nick Cox having played an important part in the
build-up.

Either side of the interval, which arrived with Hawks leading 19-5,
Adamson miscued penalties and the injury problems which had
effectively compelled Hawks to field two back-row forwards in the
second-row were exacerbated with front-row casualties too, which
necessitated the game going to uncontested scrums in the closing
stages.

West sought to rumble through their pack and enjoyed the bulk of the
pressure in the second-half. When a score eventually materialised it
was in the 72nd minute. Caddell had been yellow-carded for an offside
in his own 22 and from a quick tap penalty West lock Jan Voss dotted
down. Fraser Sinclair's conversion narrowed the gap to 12-17.

Inevitably, that triggered a dramatic finale. Two minutes into
stoppage time, McLaren and MacKechnie made inroads and when West
switched play right to left, Sinclair picked up a pass of his toes and
good hands sent left wing Ben Wright thundering over for the try.

Alas for home hopes Sinclair's conversion went astray and Hawks held
on to ensure their fifth cup final visit to Murrayfield.

In today's other semi-final Edinburgh Accies points in their 38-14 win
against Boroughmuir at Raeburn Place came from tries by Paul Loudon,
Ross Brown, Michael Campbell, Gavin Douglas and Nathan Pike. Douglas
added two conversions, two penalties and a drop-goal.

Boroughmuir's tries came from Angus Martyn and Neil Malloy with Scott
Hadden and Ross Cook goaling a conversion apiece.

This article was posted on 21-Apr-2007, 21:14 by Hugh Barrow.