THE GLASWEGIAN REPORTS

Glasgow Hawks Coach Delighted As Side Ease Relegation Fears With Watsonians Win
Mar 12 2009 By Matthew Leslie
GLASGOW HAWKS boss Peter Wright praised his heroic troops as they defied the wind and the rain to blow shell-shocked Watsonians out of the water.
Foul conditions wreaked havoc at the Edinburgh club's Myreside ground and things looked very bleak for Hawks as they found themselves 21-6 down at half-time.
Defeat was on the cards and the jaws of relegation from the Premiership grew ever wider only for Hawks to roll up their sleeves and launch a stirring second half comeback.
A try from Jono Wright and a series of kicks from the trusty boot of Mike Rainey helped the Old Anniesland side pull off a sensational 22-21 victory.
Now the Hawks' Premiership survival hopes are now firmly in their own hands and with two games of the league season left, Wright hopes his men can finish the job off.
He beamed:" It was a great performance by the lads as they displayed great character and determination to dig this result out.
"Funnily enough, I wasn't too worried about us being so far behind at half-time as I'd seen this type of situation before.
"We were playing against the wind in the first half and a 20-point lead isn't that great if you're defending it going into a howling gale for the next 40 minutes and so it proved.
"At half-time, I reminded the players of what happened when we played Currie just before Christmas.
"It was at our place and the weather was similar to what we had at Myreside with Currie taking a 20-point lead by half-time.
"Then, when we had the wind on our backs, we used it more effectively than they did and we ran in 33 unaswered points to win.
"And the same situation applied here - when it was our turn to use the wind, we did it better than Watsonians as they also didn't score any points - in fact, apart from the re-starts after we scored, they were hardly in our half."
Wright reserved particular praise for the golden boot of Rainey.
He added: "Mike was absolutely outstanding it what was a day not suited to goal-kicking.
"As a coach you like to win games by scoring tries but when you have a kicker who is on form like that, then it's one heck of a confidence boost.
"Which is one reason why our forwards showed that extra bit of grit and determination as they knew that if they could force Watsonians into giving away some silly penalties, chances were that Mike would kick them.
"As for the rest of the guys, I'm proud of them because they stood up to be counted and it paid off.
"We took a lot of stick after we were knocked out of the cup by Howe of Fife and rightly so because we played poorly that day.
"That defeat maybe brought home to some of the guys that they were not as good as they thought they were and you could see from last week that they wanted to prove to themselves they could give a good performance - and they did.
"I suppose with that kind of desire, we wanted it more than Watsonians and now we have the benefit of having our Premiership survival in our own hands.
"We have Heriot's at home in a fortnight's time and if we win that, we will be safe.
"We've a young side here and I would like to develop them within the top division instead of the one below.
"Also, if we stay up, having Premiership status is a bigger pull for keeping on existing players as well as signing new ones.
"This team can improve but we need top-flight rugby to do it."

This article was posted on 12-Mar-2009, 12:14 by Hugh Barrow.