WELCOME

A very warm welcome to the Melrose players and coaches, President Colin Ruthven and all the Melrose supporters who have travelled from the Greenyardsfor today’s game.

Today is another important game for both clubs as both Melrose and Hawks have had relatively disappointing starts to the season. That said, our performance against Stirling County last week was extremely encouraging and hopefully our young squad can carry on where they left off. It was also terrific to see Michael Adamson return to a Hawks jersey last Saturday. Michael has recently had an operation on his finger but even after such a long lay-off his performance reminded everyone at Hawks just what we had been missing over the last 12 months or so.

Melrose’s league position is one that everyone at Anniesland knows is not a true reflection of theircalibre as a team. Most of the players were part of the Scottish Cup winning team from last season, including a 42 – 8 defeat of Hawks at the Greenyards en route to the final. I am sure that under the leadership of Craig Chalmers they will move back up the table, but hopefully not today!


Youth Development and Hawks Junior Rugby Programme

A big thank you to all the players and coaches (Grant Talbot, Mike Blackie and Cammy Little) who made a massive contribution to the Development XV over the last two weeks. With back-to-back games against Christ’s College from Canterbury in New Zealand and the Scottish Exiles U’20s, as well as two important matches against Stirling County in between, a lot of our young players were given the opportunity to test themselves against two top class sides.

The game against the Exiles U’20s in particular gave players from the three schools, GHK, Glasgow Accies and one or two from Hawks 1st XV a chance to show some influential SRU coaches and selectors what they could do. Moreover, bearing in mind that some of the Exiles players are part of English Guinness Premiership Academy set-ups, a narrow 27 – 18 defeat was an extremely credible performance.

Over the last 11 years, Hawks has notched up a good record against representative and foreign sides, starting with Toulouse at Old Anniesland in 1997 and this season our Development XV will be playing sides from New Zealand, Romania and Italy.

As ever, please see Grant Talbot’s Junior Rugby update


The Glasgow Hawks Supporters Club – Inaugural Supporters Club Dinner

A date for your diary. Saturday, January 31 – Jimmy Ireland Stand, Old Anniesland.

To mark the launch of the first season of our Supporters Club, we are holding a dinner to allow all our new members to socialise with one another, enjoy Alan James’ superb cooking and have a laugh. As such, Hawks Director, Allan Mackintosh, has managed to secure the services of Willie Allan, one of Scottish rugby’s funniest after dinner speakers and auctioneers. If I was a tabloid newspaper headline writer I would describe Willie as “Box Office” so if you are interested in coming along on January 31, please contact either Allan, Anne Little or me. All contact details can be found on the club website –www.glasgowhawks.com.


Coaching Recognition

Many congratulations to Peter Wright and Davey Wilson (and Craig Chalmers of Melrose) on making the short list for coach of the Scotland Club International side. This is the second season in succession that Davey has been nominated for the position, while Peter is carrying on from his role as Scotland U’19 coach over the last five years. Add to this the fact that Hawks Assistant Coach, Jamie Dempsey, is also Head Coach of the Scottish Women’s team and it demonstrates that our investment in good coaching atAnniesland is recognised elsewhere.


Finally…

Best of luck to Hawks players, Richard Munday and Alastair Maclay as they prepare to climb Africa’s three highest peaks over the next two to three weeks. Both Ricky and Ally have put an enormous amount of effort into training for what is going to be a very arduous trip and everyone at Anniesland wishes them well.

If you would like to make a donation to their charity, Kilts2Kenya, please go to www.kilts2kenya.com.


Next home games

Saturday, October 25, K.O. 3:00 PM
1st XV Old Anniesland Watsonian FC
2nd XV New Anniesland Watsonian FC


Kenny Baillie
Chief Executive
11.10.2008

This article was originally posted on 10-Oct-2008, 07:36 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 10-Oct-2008, 09:41.