Glasgow Hawks 8
Heriot’s 35
IAIN HAY @ Balgray
THE visitors from the East coast overcame a sluggish start courtesy of a virtuoso second-half showing from stand-off Isaac Coates to, temporarily at least, go top of the Premiership table, while Hawks remain rooted to the bottom after letting a promising start peter out.
The first half was a game of two halves itself, with Hawks dominating the opening and Heriot’s ramping up the pressure all the way up to referee Mary Pringle’s whistle to signal half-time.
“It was funny, because obviously we were up at half-time, but I didn’t actually feel that we had played that well,” said the frustrated Phil Smith.
We’ve played better in previous weeks and got less out of a half than we did. And then in the second half, there’s just so many little things. They kick-off, we return it long, and then Isaac Coates makes a break out of nothing, we miss a tackle there and they score. Then, they kick-off, there’s another missed tackle and they’ve scored again. Two, non-descript, no-effort tries, which is just a killer.
“It’s just individual errors, and that’s their youthful exuberance, or youthfulness, that they don’t maintain focus. I don’t want to pinpoint, but those switch-offs are a killer. They’re not understanding when the game changes and changing with it.”
Kick-off had been delayed by 15 minutes due to Heriot’s arriving late to the stadium, but Smith’s opposite number, Stuart Edwards, did not want to use that as any excuse for his side’s slow start.
“We’ve been saying all week that the league standings can be quite deceiving. Hawks are not the worst team in this league. They have some good boys and they’re very well coached, so I’m fairly confident they will turn a few teams over here, but I was really calm at half-time.
“I felt like our processes were actually quite good, we just didn’t quite take our chances. We had three or four in the last 20 minutes of the first half, so we had some issues to fix there, just in terms of being a bit more calm. Second half, we go out and score five tries and I thought the guys who came off the bench made a big difference and helped us stamp our authority on the set-piece. And Isaac Coates has an incredible habit of digging us out of holes. He has a game-breaking ability that allows us to sometimes not be at our best but still be fine from a momentum perspective. We speak all the time about having to find different ways to win, and it’s never going to be easy, we lost here last year. This is the first game we’ve won away from home so that was a dangling carrot for the boys.”
Although Smith didn’t think his team played that well, Hawks’ early territorial and possession dominance should have resulted in more than 8 points. Two early penalties put them into Heriot’s 22, but the line-out went awry – a recurring theme of the afternoon – before an excellent tackle by Aidan Boyle prevented Hawks’ captain Ryan Flett from crossing in the left corner, but in the same passage of play Murray Waugh was able to find a big enough gap to go over.
Heriot’s discipline continued to cause them problems – they conceded 6 penalties in under a quarter of an hour – and when playing with one advantage Freddie Thomson was unlucky not to pick out David Barrie with a cross-kick, before taking the option of the points and drilling it between the sticks.
The first time that the aforementioned Coates really got his hands on the ball it caused a collision of heads between Hawks’ Flett and Max Crumlish, giving an indication of the worry he causes defences, but a sterling defensive effort in the face of relentless pressure saw Hawks keep the lead at half-time. Andrew Syme’s rip on Edward Hufton was arguably the pick of the bunch as the centre was only 10m from the Hawks’ try-line.
Heriot’s loosehead Michael Jones had produced two impressive carries, one even had a saucy offload, in the first half, and it was he who somewhat controversially got Heriot’s on the board. It was Coates with a midfield break from just inside his own half that took them deep into the 22, and although Hufton couldn’t finish, a few phases later Jones was over the line and the try was awarded, although he did appear to lose control of the ball just before grounding.
The away side then took the lead when replacement hooker Elliot Young was at the back of a thunderous rolling maul.
Having been on the back foot either side of the break, Hawks tried to respond when a perfectly judged penalty to touch 5m shy of the Heriot’s line, however they knocked in the maul. And from there, came a gut-punching blow.
Coates, deep in his own half, found or made space in the Hawks’ defensive line, he burst over halfway, drew in Euan Muirhead, exchanged passes with Ross McKnight and was over the whitewash.
Muirhead prevented another Heriot’s try when intercepting Ruairidh Leishman’s offload meant for McKnight, but it was not long before Young scored again from the maul, and Hufton completed the scoring after his initial break saw Archie Clarke heroically denied by Waugh. Hufton then managed to find just enough time to get yellow carded when deliberately knocking on as Hawks looked for a consolation.
 
Teams –
Glasgow Hawks: E Muirhead; R Flett ©, D Barrie, M Waugh, J Couper; F Thomson, G Johnstone; B Sweet, T McTier, J Campbell, A Orr, M Crumlish, T Wright, A Syme, C Nolan. Subs used: D Cruickshank, A Rutherford, S Hastings, J Pinkerton, D McCartney, R Caldwell.
Heriot’s: A Hunter; R McKnight, A Boyle, N Hufton, T Glendinning; I Coates, S Talac; M Jones, L Ferguson, S Cessford, A Clarke, R Brown, S Scott, F Wood, R Leishman ©. Subs used: E Young, M Sleeman, E McLaren, P Spence, T Dunn, J Rule, M Wallace.
Referee: Mary Pringle