Melrose 19-26 Glasgow Hawks

Going into injury time 19-19, Melrose seemingly happy with draw twice kicked for touch thinking game over. Hawks had other ideas and kept pressing hard, managed to get ball into wide channel for Mark Taylor to skip past last 2 defenders and scorch under posts from 40m out. Conversion by Mike Martin , game over now !!!
Correct result in end, although as in every week - its never dull!  4 tries to 1 but never managed to exert enough pressure  to win game earlier.
Melrose kicked pen after 5mins, took our usual first quarter to get on the board. This time Jonno Wright putting a lot of pressure on their back 3, turning ball over and sprinting in from half way. Robbie McGregor's conv for 7-3. Playing against strong wind meant Hawks always looking to move ball and build phases, Melrose happy to kick more often than not. Led to drop goal after 28mins 7-6.  With set piece creaking backs looked to move any decent ball and after 34mins miss pass to Johnny Potter in our 22m area allowed him to take on Melrose midfield. With coaching staff screaming for him to move it wide JP burst thru' side- stepped and swerved past next lines of defence and scored glorious try from 80m! Coaches   really only saying the option was there if he fancied? Robbie conv 14-6. Melrose cranked up pressure and on HT squeezed over in right corner after many phases. 14-13 H-T.
Wind behind in 2nd half but negated by struggling with some classical border refereeing. Led to early Melrose pen for offside 14-16. Side settled down and had great spell. Set up scoring opportunities on both wings but some slippery fingers prevented easy scores. Another series of attacks allowed Mike Martin to move ball left and with perfect long miss pass gave Graham Harkness space to stroll over. 19-16. Ref decided that we were tackling late and high on multiple occasions, leading to Paddy Boyer being penalised again. 19-19 with half-hour to play.
Game became bogged down with both teams not looking clinical in finishing. Hawks were always pushing hard to create something, as time ticked away urgency increased, but hardly a ref decision in our favour - Until he played on  after Melrose kicked for touch again and Tailsie did the rest.

This article was posted on 26-Sep-2010, 22:19 by Hugh Barrow.