His Hawks counterpart, Phil Smith, felt his men had merited at least a narrow defeat bonus point, but he saw the performance as further progress.
“I think we deserved something for the amount we put in. I thought we played pretty well,” was his assessment. “I thought our effort levels and our desire to do what we want to do was very good. We had just a couple of things that were not so good – first half, one knock-on and one missed tackle and they scored 10 points.
“We were not clinical enough and had we just been a bit more patient we could have picked up something. I think we are making progress but I’m just judging it on three games.”
Smith’s men contributed massively to an entertaining affair. An early attack that saw the ball zipped through several pairs of hands was a statement of intent by Hawks. However, although the fast pace of the opening stretched the home defence, it failed to yield points.
The hosts were also keen to play at pace but they squandered an opportunity to mount an assault with an overhit penalty to touch. The wastefulness also struck at the other end where Hawks lost a line-out within striking distance of the home line.
Hawks had another opportunity shortly afterwards with a tap penalty and a string of pick-and-go attempts, but a knock-on at the crucial moment meant the scoreline remained blank as the clock ticked past the 20-minute mark.
The breakthrough came shortly afterwards when a long pass by Callum Reidy found Ryan Flett in space. The winger was caught by Daniel Kelly but managed to offload to David Barrie who forced his way over for an unconverted score.
The Watsonians cause was not helped by the loss to injury of Harry Clark and Andrew McInnes, but the home side shrugged off those setbacks to strike with a quick-fire try double just before the break. The first showcased the finishing talents of Kelly, the 17-year-old who is the league’s top scorer. He latched onto a perfectly weighted cross-kick and squeezed past the last man to dot down in the corner. The youngster then turned creator as he drew the final Hawks defender before freeing Dom Coetzer to sprint in at exactly the same spot and hand the hosts an interval lead.
Hawks trimmed the deficit to two points when Liam Brims banged over a penalty five minutes after the restart. The visitors used that score as the foundation for another spell in the ascendancy, but they failed to add to their tally.
And the hosts made them pay for that failure when Lomond Macpherson raced deep into Hawks territory and offloaded to Adam McKenzie, who sent Max Garry scampering over. Andy McLean rubbed salt into the wounds of his former colleagues when he banged over the conversion to stretch the gap to nine points and leave Hawks with nothing to show for their efforts.
Teams –
Watsonians: D Coetzer; Z Walls, L Macpherson, H Clark, D Kelly; A McLean, M Scott; C Davidson, B Cooper, C Lamberton, F Ronnie, A McInnes, K Van Niekirk©, S Allison, H Jackaman. Subs used: M Pritchard, D Voas, M Marshall, L Ball, B Robertson, A McKenzie, M Garry.
Glasgow Hawks: E Muirhead; R Flett, D Barrie, L Jarvie, J Hastings; L Brims, C Reidy; B Sweet, P Cairncross©, M Morrison, A Orr, M Oliver, Y Shaheen, H Preston, S Hastings. Subs used: T Mcteir, C Nolan, S Gray, F Anderson, A Rutherford, S Steele, G Cruickshanks.
Referee: Ruairidh Campbell
Scorers –
Watsonians: Tries: Kelly, Coetzer, Garry; Cons: McLean.
Glasgow Hawks: Tries: Barrie; Pens: Brims.
Scoring sequence (Watsonians first): 0-5; 5-5; 10-5 (h-t) 10-8; 15-8; 17-8.
Player-of-the-match: The key to the win was the ability of Watsonians to strike against the run of play and the main man in that respect was Lomond Macpherson, whose incisive running was crucial in unlocking the Hawks defence.
Talking point: This was a feast of open rugby served up by two sides who profited from ideal conditions to run the ball at every opportunity. Both should be contenders to finish in the top half of the table if they can continue to develop and can cope with the heavier conditions they will face over the coming months.