{"id":368514,"date":"2025-08-24T00:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T00:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/368514\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T00:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T00:43:10","slug":"ayr-carry-on-where-they-left-off-with-big-win-over-glasgow-hawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/368514\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayr carry on where they left off with big win over Glasgow Hawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ayr were somewhat disrupted ahead of the match with the withdrawal of Bobby Beattie<\/strong>, scheduled to start in the number 10 jersey, who was replaced by David McCartney.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d named the team Thursday night, so that\u2019s how we assumed we\u2019d start today. Davie is very different to Bobby, so it then changes the style of our game a wee bit,\u201d reflected Anderson.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m saying I\u2019m unhappy but that\u2019s because we constantly want to improve and I want to push us on. Quite a bit of learning for us in our review on Tuesday night but, at the same time, happy with the result. We probably needed this last week, a final warm-up game to get rid of some rust.\u201d<\/p>\n

The opening quarter was highly competitive, Luca Bardelli\u2019<\/strong>s opening score of the season coming when Ayr got the nudge on in a centrally located scrum, and when the ball was tossed wide, the winger had far too much space to gallop into.<\/p>\n

The visitors were soon on level terms when Liam Brims<\/strong> took a quick penalty in the Ayr 22, and Ryan Flett<\/strong> carried into contact before releasing Euan Muirhead<\/strong> to score, but then Ayr decided to bring the boom.<\/p>\n

It started with a scrum penalty and ended with Alex McGuire<\/strong> crossing at the back of the maul, then a touch of good fortune saw the ball plop at Ed Bloodworth\u2019<\/strong>s feet and the big lock showed good gas to get into the 22 before sending Jamie Shedden<\/strong> over, before Ryan Sweeney<\/strong>\u2019s close-range finish after another line-out maul \u2013 created by Scott Watso<\/strong>n\u2019s teasing, trickly 50-22 \u2013 put Ayr in a dominant 24-7 lead.<\/p>\n

A coach-killer of a penalty conceded by Yousuf Shaheen<\/strong> in the dying embers of the half led to Bardelli\u2019s second, another kick to touch and maul created space, and the winger dived into the corner despite Flett\u2019s best efforts.<\/p>\n

Hawks refuse to lie down<\/strong><\/p>\n

To Hawks\u2019 credit, they came out in the second half firing, dominating possession and territory until Max Morrison<\/strong> got over, but then Oscar Baird<\/strong>\u2019s terrific work at the restart saw the ball back in Ayr hands, and replacement hooker Jamie McAughtrie<\/strong> soon went over from that maul once again.<\/p>\n

McAughtrie nearly got over again, this time from open play, and in the resulting breakdown Harvey Preston<\/strong> played the scrum-half and Ayr captain Blair Macpherson<\/strong> opened his account for the season.<\/p>\n

Watson was sent to the bin for a high tackle \u2013 not the first one of the day \u2013 on the fleet-footed David Barrie,<\/strong> and another penalty five-metres out saw Hawks\u2019 captain Paul Cairncross<\/strong> match Macpherson by going over.<\/p>\n

A \u201clittle bit of needle\u201d turned into a whole load of pushing and shoving after Morrison and Macpherson crossed paths, and with referee Sam O\u2019Neill\u2019<\/strong>s patience evaporating quickly, Hawks were marched back 10 metres after conceding a side-entry penalty, and Andy Stirratt<\/strong> finished off the first-phase move from the line-out. Jack Craig<\/strong> drop-kicked the conversion over after getting fed up with the kicking tee.<\/p>\n

Tempers boiled over again with roughly seven minutes left to play, leading to Fraser Muir<\/strong> and Rhodri Tanner<\/strong> both picking ip yellow cards, with Ayr\u2019s Welsh hooker-turned-prop fortunate not to have seen red. Unfortunately for Brandon Sweet<\/strong>, who had only just come off the park, it meant he had to put his boots back on and replace Muir at scrum -time.<\/p>\n

There was still time for one last Stirratt try when he somehow managed to hold onto McCartney\u2019s cross-kick with the last play of the match, and although he had just seen his new side soundly beaten, Phil Smith<\/strong> saw signs of encouragement.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew it was going to be a physical challenge, and when we look back at the game we were outmuscled in certain areas that led to scores; driving maul being one example, and our scrum was under a lot of pressure,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, if we look at our stamp on the game, we actually did better than we maybe anticipated because we\u2019ve had a fairly broken pre-season. My hope is that we take on board what we did today and roll it into games which are more obviously winnable than visiting Millbrae on game one of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe boys are disappointed, [and] to get a bonus point try at the end would have been nice. They put a lot in and didn\u2019t feel massively threatened until certain parts of the game where Ayr were clinical, but we are quietly happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Teams \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ayr:<\/strong> S Watson; J Craig, J Shedden, A Stirrat, L Bardelli; D McCartney, F Johnston; J Drummond, A McGuire, C Henderson, E Bloodworth, R Jackson, R Sweeney, T Brown, B Macpherson (c). Subs:<\/strong> J McAughtrie, R Tanner, C Rae, O Baird, S Rae, A McGowan, T Lanni<\/p>\n

Glasgow Hawks:<\/strong> E Muirhead; R Flett, F Callaghan, L Jarvie, J Hastings; L Brims, C Reidy; F Muir, P Cairncross (c), B Sweet, A Orr, A Brennan, Y Shaheen, H Preston, S Hastings.\u00a0Subs:<\/strong>\u00a0C Nolan, M Morrison, S Gray,\u00a0 J Martin, A Syme, H Roxburgh, D Barrie<\/p>\n

Referee:<\/strong> Sam O\u2019Neill<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Scorers \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ayr:<\/strong> Tries: Bardelli 2, McGuire, Shedden, Sweeney, McAughtrie, Macpherson, Stirrat 2; Cons: Watson 5, Craig.<\/p>\n

Hawks:<\/strong> Tries: Muirhead, Morrison Cons: Brims (3)<\/p>\n

Scoring sequence (Ayr first):<\/strong> 5-0; 7-0; 7-5; 7-7; 12-7; 17-7; 22-7; 24-7; 29-7; 31-7 (h-t) 32-12; 31-14; 36-14; 38-14; 43-14; 43-19; 43-21; 48-21; 50-21; 55-21; 57-21.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yellow Cards \u2013<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ayr:<\/strong> Watson, Tanner<\/p>\n

Hawks:<\/strong> Preston, Muir<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Player-of-the-Match:<\/strong> Quite a tough one to call given that it wasn\u2019t the most fluid of games, but Andy Stirrat<\/strong> got himself a brace and got the better of the key head-to-head battle.<\/p>\n

Talking point:<\/strong> Both sides were guilty of some pretty poor challenges, which we\u2019ll politely put down to ring rustiness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ayr were somewhat disrupted ahead of the match with the withdrawal of Bobby Beattie, scheduled to start in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[128979,748,85185,918,128980,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-368514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-ayr-rfc","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-divi","11":"tag-glasgow","12":"tag-glasgow-hawks-rfc","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-scotland","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115080973788517817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}