Glasgow Hawks 19-30 Heriot's

Pulsating all action game ended in agony of a 4th defeat of season. All been similar in Hawks playing well for spells , but ultimately being unable to defend a lead. Early Heriot's pressure made it 3-0 after 10mins. Hawks then got into game and great scrum pressure resulted in Mike Martin charging down a  clearance kick, retrieved and dived over. Mike added conv for 7-3. We then  blew a couple of chances as possession was dominated. Both teams playing at full pelt resulted in mistakes and Stu Low took advantage . From a turn over broke past first line of defence, chipped over, caught on bounce and left last of Heriots' flat-footed in his wake! The skills surprised even himself! 14-3 after 18mins.
Heriot's came right back into it  due to poor fringe defence on Hawks line 14-10.  Heriot's managed to play at pace and several off-loads ended with great score under posts. 14-17 after 30mins. All credit  to the team who dominated rest of half and  exploited a loose kick when Ian Boyer and Gav McD ran it back before Mark Taylor cut through the defence and put Ally Maxwell  into corner.  19-17 H-T. Fab first half .
Hawks started aggressively but missed pen to stretch lead. Then good phases put together put Heriot's under the cosh but 2 scoring passes didn't go to hand, 15 points blown in 10mins!
Heriot's then got on top and went ahead with courtesy of a huge ref blunder. Ball spilled forward before bouncing off a Hawks player and eventually into Heriot's winger's hands and he squeezed in at corner. Crucial miss by ref!  19-22
For an hour there was no refereeing of the breakdown and both teams adapted but for some reason the whistle started blowing in last 15 mins and Hawks suffered to go19-25 down after 68mins.
Last 10mins was full on attack trying to rescue the game, huge Heriot's defence kept us out . In desperation quick throw taken which bounced into Heriot's hands and winger finished it off. Game over!

This article was posted on 2-Feb-2011, 23:01 by Hugh Barrow.