SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY REPORTS

Heriot's 20 - 22 Glasgow Hawks: Hawks prey on Heriot's

Published Date: 10 October 2010
By David Ferguson
A BITTERLY cold afternoon in the capital brought a horribly scrappy match but that will bother Glasgow Hawks little as they claimed a last-ditch victory and bonus point thanks to sinner-turned-saint Bart Karalus.

There will, however, be plenty for Hawks director of rugby Peter Wright to analyse this week

s they dominated possession for long spells in this game yet contrived to squander a handful of scoring chances.

After an early miss, Heriot's Graham Wilson had opened the scoring in the 12th minute. Hawks then started to show what they had in attack, but opted against actually scoring.

Having done the hard work and sucked in Heriot's defence in tight on the right, poor passing squandered an overlap on the left in the 15th minute, and moments later they were again stretching Heriot's across their own 22, but could not apply the finish, a fine tackle by Chukwuma Osazuwa the pick of a good scrambling defensive effort by the hosts. In between Wilson missed a second penalty, but then, with 24 minutes played, Hawks finally did get there, Ross Miller taking the direct route off a scrum five metres out and reaching a long arm to the line.

Heriot's looked to be going nowhere fast as they moved ball this way and that across the Hawks 22 in a good period in possession before, suddenly, Max Learmonth dropped David Milne in the tackle and accelerated through a gap to score. Wilson's conversion put Heriot's 10-5 up and he extended it to 13-5 on the stroke of half-time when a second no-arms' tackle by Karalus cost the Kiwi flanker a yellow card and his side another penalty.

Heriot's swept further ahead six minutes into the second half. A sublime pass out of the tackle by Jamie Syme to Osazuwa turned another seemingly directionless attack into something special and the lock showed a startling burst of pace, and power, to brush off two tackles and sprint 30 metres to the posts.

The score sharpened Hawks' claws, however, as from the restart they took on the home pack, Rory McKay, the lock, providing a captain's lead, and loosehead prop Smith supplied the finishing touch to a lineout drive and ruck by diving over.

Miller then finished another concerted bit of pressure by crashing over on the hour-mark. Now Hawks were back in it, but with Andy White off injured, South African centre Dean Kelbrick had taken over and he missed the target again.

Now Heriot's were taking their turn at wasting chances and two missed penalties by Wilson, with his side 20-15 ahead, were to haunt him.

In an exciting finale, Heriot's prop Wullie Blacklock was yellow-carded for a succession of penalties that helped initially to hold up Hawks. However.Karalus managed to score and with White back on the field, he converted to hand Hawks a last-gasp win.

Scorers: Glasgow Hawks: Tries: Miller 2, Smith, Karalus. Con: White. Heriot's FP: Tries: Learmonth, Osazuwa. Pens: Wilson 2. Cons: Wilson.

Heriot's FP: C Goudie; G Bryce, M Learmonth, G Hunter, M Nimmo; C Ferguson, G Wilson; A Dymock, S Burnett, G Cameron, C Osazuwa, J Hill, S Dewar, J Syme. Subs used: R Martin, W Blacklock, P Saunders, K Bryce.

Glasgow Hawks: R Hair; J White, D Kelbrick, T Preece, K Gossman; A White, K Hamilton; A Smith, E Milligan, G Hunter, R Hamilton, A Kirkland, R McKay, B Karalus, R Miller. Subs used: T Steven, D Milne, G Strain.

Referee: J Matthew.

This article was posted on 10-Oct-2010, 10:26 by Hugh Barrow.