Hawks 2’s versus Ayr 10/11/07


‘You have no control over what the other guy does – you only have control over what you do’ (Alva Kitt – U.S. skier)


A side shorn of last week’s 2nd rows (all 3 who played), midfield trio and with 4 other players getting their 1st starts of the season took the field at the Academy School ground yesterday, under cloudy and cold conditions. Coupled with that, the fact that we graciously allowed Ayr to use 6 replacements and then found ourselves with only 3 ourselves meant that, yet again, it was an uphill battle for the 2’s.


However adversity can be a great motivator in itself and the Mighty 2’s have shown bucketloads of that at various times this season. A terrific start was made with 2 tries in the first 5 minutes, one for each winger. Both were the result of good hands and a desire to keep the ball moving, with quick ruck ball being crucial. Stu’s try was converted by KB and the score stood at 12-0.


Too good a start and a bit of complacency set in – how often has that been written about Hawks 2’s? To give the visitors credit, they began to play to their strengths and that was obviously up front where they displayed more power than the Hawks’ pack. It is very difficult to play our preferred game of repeated phase play when the opposition are being allowed to slow play down and enter rucks from off side positions – not just my opinion but also that of our stand-in physio, Andy Plastow.


All of this allowed Ayr to build some territorial advantage as the half wore on and by the half hour mark they had levelled the score from two forward-orientated tries. They then extended this lead through a penalty, struck 3 minutes from the end of the 48 minute half.


HALF TIME: Hawks 12 Ayr 15


The talk at half time was of eliminating mistakes and using the elements to play in the visitors’ end of the field – unfortunately Ayr scored almost straight from the kick off to extend their lead to 10 points. Hawks lineout was functioning well considering that we only had 1 principal jumper in Jon Morrisey, who dominated wherever he jumped and luckily Pene Navu answered a late call to the subs bench, to assist in these duties. When Pene arrived at first it looked as though his efforts would be in vain as the coach still had his boots from last weeks’ trip to Biggar……in his house! Luckily Physio Plastow has the same size feet so that was sorted out.


Although still being heavily penalised at rucks, even to the extent of being pulled up for moving an Ayr player away with their feet when he was clearly denying them a try scoring opportunity, Hawks were coming in to the game.


Some hard running in the centres gave Mark Davids the chance to barge his way over after 12 minutes and brought them within a score of levelling the game.


Ten minutes from the end some sustained drives from Hawks led to penalties being conceded and, with Jon winning ball regularly, the option was taken to go for lineouts.

From one, ball was re-cycled a couple of times and again it was Mark Davids who went over, playing almost like an extra forward. 24-12 to Hawks.


For the remainder Hawks upped their levels of discipline and some excellent defence kept the visitors at bay, captain Kiddsy to the fore in his duties – well being a Killie man you’d expect that!


FINAL SCORE: Hawks 24 Ayr 22


The Mighty 2’s have prided themselves on scoring tries from well-controlled lineout ball over the last 2 years so it was hard to take having it done to us with such ease. However a team which suffers so many disruptions is always going to struggle to put together the rhythm required to win games and we should not be downhearted in any way at this. Hopefully everything will settle down soon and a relatively unchanged team can take the field for 2 consecutive games at least.


Thanks this week to Scottie, Neil MacKenzie and Pene for answering the call and to Andy Plastow for covering the physio duties. Congrats to Oli Gilmartin and Andy Jackson on their 1st starts and to Chooks on his 1st game since the Morrison’s Cup – he did well to last the whole game.


Next week Boroughmuir away, a real tough game in the past and it will be no different this year. Preparation is the key!!

This article was posted on 11-Nov-2007, 21:27 by Hugh Barrow.