Gritty GHA see off Glasgow Hawks to keep up winning start to campaign

“We didn’t quite get there, but we certainly won that territory battle and that’s important on a day like this.”

Sitting second behind the seemingly immovable Ayr, and after a win that made it five wins from five games, could he have envisaged such a return to the Premiership?

“It’s been a kind of favourable start [NB: Comparatively – Hawks opened at Ayr and played another two of the semi-finalists in the first four matchdays]. It’s allowed us to find our feet against teams that aren’t the ‘big boys’ so to speak, so it’s allowed us to keep our confidence going from last season. We take on each new challenge week on week and we have another opportunity and challenge after the break when we take on Heriot’s.”

As already mentioned, this wasn’t one which would have the neutrals’ hearts racing if they had stumbled across it on The YouTubes.

There were a few what ifs? nearlies, and coulda, shouldas until the boot of Gregor Drummond eventually opened the scoring with a penalty after 36, pretty long, minutes. The penalty was given after Euan Muirhead was penalised for not releasing after running into Sean Callaghan and Andrew Goudie, although the full-back had done well, in fairness, to sweep up his own charged-down kick with Aminio Bogidrau for bad company.

The closest anyone had come to a try by that point in the match was Caleb Thomson. A kick from Goudie was nearly on the money, the bounce was nearly perfect, and Thomson nearly caught it, but nearly doesn’t convert to points.

GHA had the majority of the territory but Hawks’ defensive work in the opening quarter especially was all encompassing, and aggressive. On one of the sets alone, Yousuf Shaheen twice lasered out of the line to take his man, the second forcing a knock-on from Goudie.

Shaheen had been ably supported by his back-row partners Harvey Preston and Seb Hastings – the pair of them combining to make a thunderous, knock-on inducing double-hit on a rampaging Matthew Conroy – until Preston’s afternoon was unfortunately ended prematurely by injury.

Hawks had barely landed a jab, in an attacking sense, in the first half, but a Muirhead 50-22 saw them start the second half promisingly.

Brandon Sweet was then held up over the line with penalty advantage. Allthough it was fairly central and 5m out, Hawks opted for the sidelines rather than the tap and go or scrum, possibly because captain Paul Cairncross had been replaced at half-time with a tight calf. It proved to be a very bad choice, as they were penalised themselves for crossing in the line-out.

The big hits kept coming, so did the knock-ons, and the scrums kept popping up and being reset, until a loose pass by Liam Brims was hacked ahead by Ruari Campbell and the wheels and annoying presence of Luke McCutcheon saw the ball reappear on the GHA side inside the Hawks’ 22.

They got within a sniff of the try-line paint before there were numbers left, Goudie threw a miss-pass and Glen Little got through Jonah Hastings to score in the left-hand corner.

Former Scotland international Scott Steele came on at scrum-half for Hawks shortly afterwards, and his injection of pace with a quickly taken tap penalty and link-up with Murray Oliver helped Hawks get themselves on the scoreboard.

The attack culminated with a grubber from Alex Bryden, which Little covered adequately, but he was soon wrapped up by Muirhead and James Couper and bundled into touch 5m out. Line-out completed, Sweet apparently scored the try under the pile of bodies. Brims converted, and it was 8-7.

Drummond’s restart didn’t go the required 10m, so Hawks were given the put-in at the scrum on halfway. The scrums had been messy all afternoon but referee Ciaran Stark had rarely penalised either side. GHA Club captain Michael Fox – moving up to 2nd place on the GHA All-Time Appearance list, winning cap 174 today – and Sweet were having a fair old ding-dong, but as the second half progressed, Stark’s patience wore.

It was to GHA’s advantage as they won the scrum penalty against the head, Drummond kicked brilliantly to touch, and Campbell scored from the back of a maul.

Both teams failed to execute final scoring half-chances – Brims will be furious with himself for missing touch with a penalty with around 5mins remaining – but an Adam Kerr line-out steal, and a final turnover penalty for GHA, saw them through.

“The first 20 minutes, we were defending, and it was fine because we were able to cope with that. The frustrating thing is when we get our moment, I think some of the younger guys go “Oh, it’s the first time we’re in their 22” so we try to offload at the wrong time, rather than just keep the ball and try to build some momentum,” stated a frustrated Phil Smith after his first coaching taste of a Glasgow derby.

“That was frustrating in the first half. Second half we came out and did alright; got some good possession but just didn’t execute our set-piece. When we tried to apply pressure we lost a bit of set-piece.

“Even at the end, when we’re trying to build a bit of pressure we’re playing around this area here [points to touchline at halfway] , Brimsy misses a penalty to touch and we’d have been in a good area, but we didn’t get them into positions to break them down.”

 

Teams –

GHA: G Drummond; C Thomson, C Lonergan, A Bogidrau, G Little; A Goudie, E McKirdy; O McKenna, R Campbell, M Fox, A Kerr, S Callaghan, M Conroy, D Ewing ©, L McCutcheon. Subs: L Barron, S Collins, C MacGregor, J Davis, H McKenzie, G Baird, B MacDougall.

Glasgow Hawks:  E Muirhead; R Flett, L Jarvie, A Brydon, J Hastings; L Brims, C Reidy; M Morrison, P Cairncross ©, B Sweet, A Rutherford, M Oliver, Y Shaheen, H Preston, S Hastings. Subs: T McNeir, F Muir, A Young, A Syme, S Steele, J Couper, D Barrie.

Referee: Ciaran Stark

 

Scoring sequence (GHA first): 3-0; ht; 8-0; 8-7; 13-7.

 

Scorers –

GHA: Tries: Little, Campbell. Pen: Drummond

Glasgow Hawks: Try: Sweet  Con: Brims.

 

Player of the Match: He’s making a habit of appearing in the Team of the Week, and it’s one that GHA will hope continues. Effective in the line-out regardless of the thrower, his energetic kick chase led to the Little try and he won the match-ending turnover: Luke McCutcheon wins again.

 

Talking Point: Derby needle is to be expected but there was an excessive amount of “shit-housing” going on. Stop applauding penalties like you’ve won the lottery.

 

 

“We didn’t quite get there, but we certainly won that territory battle and that’s important on a day like this.”

Sitting second behind the seemingly immovable Ayr, and a Glasgow derby win to make it 5 winds from 5 games, could he have envisaged such a return to the Premiership?

“It’s been a kind of favourable start [NB: comparatively, Hawks opened at Ayr and played another 2 of the semi-finalists in the first four matchdays] , it’s allowed us to find our feet against teams that aren’t the ‘big boys’ so to speak, so it’s allowed us to keep our confidence going from last season. We take on each new challenge week-on-week and we have another opportunity and challenge after the break when we take on Heriot’s.”

As already mentioned, this wasn’t one which would have the neutrals hearts racing if they had stumbled across it on The YouTubes.

There were a few what ifs? nearlies, and coulda, shouldas until the boot of Gregor Drummond eventually opened the scoring with a penalty after 36, pretty long, minutes. The penalty was given after Euan Muirhead was penalised for not releasing after running into Sean Callaghan and Andrew Goudie, although the full-back had done well, in fairness, to sweep up his own charged-down kick with Aminio Bogidrau for bad company.

The closest anyone had come to a try by that point in the match was Caleb Thomson, playing with penalty Andrew Goudie’s kick was nearly on the money, the bounce was nearly perfect, and Thomson nearly caught it, but nearly doesn’t convert to points.

GHA had the majority of the territory but Hawks’ defensive work in the opening quarter especially was all encompassing, and aggressive.

On one of the sets alone, Yousuf Shaheen twice lasered out of the line to take his man, the second forcing a knock-on from Goudie.

Shaheen had been ably supported by his back-row partners Harvey Preston and Seb Hastings – the pair of them combining to make a thunderous, knock-on inducing double-hit on a rampaging Matthew Conroy – until Preston’s afternoon was unfortunately ended prematurely by injury.

Hawks had barely landed a jab, in an attacking sense, in the first half, but a Muirhead 50-22 saw them start the second half promisingly.

Brandon Sweet was then held up over the line with penalty advantage, although it was fairly central and 5m out, Hawks opted for the sidelines rather than the tap and go or scrum, possibly because captain Paul Cairncross had been replaced at half-time with a tight calf. It proved to be a very bad choice, as they were penalised themselves for crossing in the line-out.

The big hits kept coming, so did the knock-ons, and the scrums kept popping up and being reset, until a loose pass by Liam Brims was hacked ahead by Ruari Campbell and the wheels and annoying presence of Luke McCutcheon saw the ball reappear on the GHA side inside the Hawks’ 22.

They got within a sniff of the try-line paint before there were numbers left, Goudie threw a miss-pass and Glen Little got through Jonah Hastings to score in the left-hand corner.

Former Scotland international Scott Steele came on at scrum-half for Hawks shortly afterwards, and his injection of pace with a quickly taken tap penalty and link-up with Murray Oliver helped Hawks get themselves on the scoreboard.

The attack culminated with a grubber from Alex Bryden which Little covered adequately, but he was soon wrapped up by Muirhead and James Couper and bundled into touch 5m out. Line-out completed, Brandon Sweet apparently scored the try under the pile of bodies. Brims converted, and it was 8-7.

Drummond’s restart didn’t go the required 10m, so Hawks were given the put-in at the scrum on halfway. The scrums had been messy all afternoon but referee Ciaran Stark had rarely penalised either side. GHA Club captain Michael Fox – moving up to 2nd place on the GHA All-Time Appearance list, winning cap 174 today – and Sweet were having a fair old ding-dong, but as the second-half progressed, Stark’s patience wore.

It was to GHA’s advantage as they won the scrum penalty against the head, Drummond kicked brilliantly to touch, and Campbell scored from the back of a maul.

Both teams failed to execute final scoring half-chances – Brims will be furious with himself for missing touch with a penalty with around 5mins remaining – but an Adam Kerr line-out steal, and a final turnover penalty for GHA, saw them through.

“The first 20 minutes, we were defending, and it was fine because we were able to cope with that. The frustrating thing is when we get our moment, I think some of the younger guys go “Oh, it’s the first time we’re in their 22” so we try to offload at the wrong time, rather than just keep the ball and try to build some momentum” started a frustrated Phil Smith after his first coaching taste of a Glasgow derby.

“That was frustrating in the first half, second half, we come out and did alright; got some good possession but just didn’t execute our set-piece. When we tried to apply pressure we lost a bit of set-piece.

“Even at the end, when we’re trying to build a bit of pressure we’re playing around this area here [points to touchline at halfway] , Brimsy misses a penalty to touch and we’d have been in a good area, but we didn’t get them into positions to break them down.”

 

Teams –

 

GHA: G Drummond; C Thomson, C Lonergan, A Bogidrau, G Little; A Goudie, E McKirdy; O McKenna, R Campbell, M Fox, A Kerr, S Callaghan, M Conroy, D Ewing ©, L McCutcheon. Subs: L Barron, S Collins, C MacGregor, J Davis, H McKenzie, G Baird, B MacDougall.

 

Glasgow Hawks:  E Muirhead; R Flett, L Jarvie, A Brydon, J Hastings; L Brims, C Reidy; M Morrison, P Cairncross ©, B Sweet, A Rutherford, M Oliver, Y Shaheen, H Preston, S Hastings. Subs: T McNeir, F Muir, A Young, A Syme, S Steele, J Couper, D Barrie.

 

Referee: Ciaran Stark

 

Scoring sequence (GHA first): 3-0; ht; 8-0; 8-7; 13-7.

 

Scorers –

GHA: Tries: Little, Campbell. Pen: Drummond

Glasgow Hawks: Try: Sweet  Con: Brims.

 

Player of the Match: He’s making a habit of appearing in the Team of the Week, and it’s one that GHA will hope continues. Effective in the line-out regardless of the thrower, his energetic kick chase led to the Little try and he won the match-ending turnover: Luke McCutcheon wins again.

 

Talking Point: Derby needle is to be expected but there was an excessive amount of “shit-housing” going on. Stop applauding penalties like you’ve won the lottery.