Glasgow Hawks 25 - 24 Dundee HSFP: Hawks happy to count blessings as defeat leaves Ian Rankin rattled
THE SCOTSMAN REPORTS
Published Date: 04 October 2010
By IAIN MORRISON
at OLD ANNIESLAND
Glasgow Hawks 25

Dundee HSFP 24
IF every title challenger needs a little luck from time to time Hawks will look back on this match and concede that they used up an entire season's worth in the course of 80 minutes.

Dundee dominated long periods of this match despite seeing two yellow cards. They bossed the scrums to an embarrassing extent, they won the try count by 4-3 and still the home side walked away with the points. Who said life was fair?

Peter Wright admitted that his side had, "got out of jail". Always honest, the Hawks coach was left muttering about winning while playing badly and that is the major comfort he could take from Anniesland on Saturday. That and the fact that his giant lock Nick Campbell came through a second team game with his knee unscathed after being sidelined for almost an entire year.

Glasgow forwards coach Shane Munro was in attendance and he may have been monitoring Campbell's progress with as much interest as Kevin Tkachuk's as the Canadian international prop made a gentle return to the game in Hawks' front row after his own injury troubles.

Dundee's coach Ian Rankin was not best pleased by the officials and after the match he said that he had a long list of grievances to put to them.

Top of the list were two second-half tries from winger James Fleming and No 8 Ryan Milne that were wiped off by the referee.

Even Wright admitted afterwards that he thought the scores were good.

To compound Rankin's misery, when Hawks own muscular No 8 Ross Miller burst through an unpopulated ten channel to score what proved to be the match-winning try, Wight conceded that his forwards had run some canny lines to prevent the Dundee defenders getting close their man.

"I have never been so annoyed after a game," said Rankin.

"I never doubted that we were going to win that match right up until the final whistle. There were two identical tackles out there and just one yellow card,. Their tackle didn't even warrant a penalty."

The incidents he was referring to saw Dundee's prop Neil Dymock shown a yellow card for a spear tackle just minutes after a similar Hawks misdemeanour had gone unpunished.

Dymock, who bullied the Hawks' front row mercilessly was followed into the bin by his hooker Simon Forrest for handling in a ruck - and Rankin did not agree with that decision either.

All this meant that Hawks raced into a 13-0 lead thanks to a long-distance try by Robbie Hair and three kicks from the boot of Andy White, two penalties and a conversion.


Dundee fly-half Rick McKenna kept his side in the chase with an interception try and a conversion and the other Dymock on display, livewire scrum-half Alan, the stand-out player on the day, wriggled over for Dundee's second from a five-metre scrum just before the break.

Both sides scored two more tries after the break, Dean Kelbrick and Miller for the home team, Matt White and Fleming for the visitors, but the net result was a squeaky win for Hawks with relief the main emotion at the final whistle.

For all of Rankin's complaints - and many of them appeared to have substance - Dundee were still the architects of their own downfall since fly-half McKenna missed two conversions and two simple penalty attempts.

Dundee's usual marksman Fleming evidently started the game with a tight groin but it didn't stop him converting his own try in the dying minutes of this match.

The winger got little chance to shine during the match - he was fielding passes like a slip catcher in cricket - but his late touchdown gives him nine tries in seven matches this season and that statistic must have registered with Glasgow coach Sean Lineen by now.

The Dundee flyer is only a part-time pro, but he possesses the pace to conjure something out of nothing and Glasgow haven't had someone boasting that ability since Thom Evans' sad departure from the game.

Scorers: Hawks: Tries: Hair, Kelbrick, Miller. Cons: White, Melbrick. Pens: White (2). Dundee: Tries: McKenna, A Dymock, Smith, Fleming. Cons: McKenna, Fleming.

Glasgow Hawks: Hair; White, Kelbrick, Preece, Steven; White, K Hamilton; Tkachuk, Milligan, Smith, R Hamilton, A Kirkland, McKay (capt), Hill, Miller. Subs used: Strain, Hunter, Strang, Milne, Boyer.

Dundee HSFP: O'Connor; Smith, Duthie, Wade, Fleming; McKenna, A Dymock; N Dymock, Forrest, Brown, Linton, Hawkins (Capt), Cumming, Gray, Milne. Subs used: Kerr, Russell, Levinson, Cessford, Strachan.

Referee: R McHenry.

This article was originally posted on 4-Oct-2010, 06:55 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 4-Oct-2010, 07:04.