Currie 24 Glasgow Hawks 19: Currie too hot for Hawks
Lewis Stuart at Malleny Park



THE double double turned to toil and trouble for Glasgow Hawks yesterday as an incredible late collapse saw them turfed out of the BT Cup, ending their dream of collecting both main domestic trophies in consecutive seasons. For Peter Wright, their ebullient coach, it means his reign effectively ends in a fortnight when they could collect the league title.
Full marks to Currie for turning into Glasgow party poopers, suckering the men from the west into believing they were on their way to a quarter-final tie against Aberdeen before hitting back in the final quarter to reverse the 16-point deficit and snatch the result with Dougie Flockhart, the full-back who was on the bench for Scotland Under-21s on Friday, racing over for the winning score.



The other hero was replacement back-row Neil Snedden, who came scorching off the bench on the hour and popped up twice in support of backs moves to score the tries that put Currie on the way to victory before leaving minutes from the end to have stitches put in a cut near his right eye. He was well backed by another storming performance from Colin Quigley, the prop, who set up both Snedden’s tries with bursts through the heart of the Hawks defence.

It was a remarkable result, not least because Currie had to go to their members this season for extra funding to get out of a financial hole created when their SRU subsidy was slashed from £20,000 to £2,000. They have also been struggling in the league and with GHA defeating Melrose yesterday, face the prospect of relegation for the first time since they started their climb through the divisions more than 20 years ago. Victory was also achieved with key players missing: Ben Cairns and David Officer, their exciting centres, are injured, as is Bruce Ward, the hardman of the pack, while Gavin Scott, their captain, was called away with Scotland, for whom he is video analyst.

However, Currie were woeful for large chunks of the first hour of the game, which was broken into two phases: half an hour of abject, error-strewn rugby from both teams with neither side deserving a score.

The second 30 minutes saw Hawks take charge, replying to a Michael Ker penalty for Currie that broke the deadlock with a small wave of tries, started by a superb break from Ally Maclay, the centre, who cut the defence and fed Mark Sitch, the No 8, for the score. That was soon followed by a break from flanker Stevie Swindall to set up the position for Steve Gordon, the wing, to score before Maclay again intervened with a break and perfect pass to send Mike Adamson in for try number three and the result seemingly sealed.

Only Currie refused to see it that way. Quigley was the man who made the difference, his charge through the Hawks’ ranks just after the hour sending would-be tacklers hurling in all directions as he headed for the posts. With Hawks’ last ditch defence in the way, he offloaded to Snedden and in went the score.

Five minutes later he was at it again, battering through to set up a ruck almost on the Hawks line and his swift handling nearly putting Flockhart over before the full-back popped the ball up from the ground to send Snedden in for a try. Suddenly Hawks, who had been cruising, were nervous, with Currie moving the ball at every opportunity and reaping the final reward.

“Hearing the score from GHA is a bit of a blow since the league is our main priority,” said Ally Donaldson, the home coach. “But this will do a lot for our confidence. We have lost a lot of matches in the last 20 minutes recently so I asked the boys to give me something extra in the final quarter and they certainly did me proud in that respect.”

This article was posted on 13-Mar-2005, 08:56 by Hugh Barrow.