Hawick RAU 1-0 Arniston Rangers: Swaney ends losing run

Hawick Royal Albert United ended a run of five straight defeats with a narrow 1-0 win over Arniston Rangers in the East of Scotland League.
Lewis Swaney scores the only goal in Hawick Royal Albert United's 1-0 win over Arniston Rangers (picture: Brian Sutherland)Lewis Swaney scores the only goal in Hawick Royal Albert United's 1-0 win over Arniston Rangers (picture: Brian Sutherland)
Lewis Swaney scores the only goal in Hawick Royal Albert United's 1-0 win over Arniston Rangers (picture: Brian Sutherland)

There was a lack of goals, not a lot of fast flowing football and apart from the closing stages, little excitement.

And this Conference B game in the Albert Park sunshine was far from a bright affair.

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Due to showing no shortage of grit and endeavour, Hawick Royal Albert United however were on a high in having emerged from the doldrums in ending a five match losing streak.

Summing up his sides long awaited victory, Royal Albert United defender and man of the match, Ryan Shepherd said: “It wasn’t a pretty win but a win is a win and I’ll take this anytime. I thought we showed a lot of fighting spirit during the game. Everybody worked hard for each other and it was a real team effort. It was great to break a losing run”.

With the two respective sides on the same amount of points in the league table, Hawick came near to breaking the deadlock with just minutes gone through Danny Bolton who rifled a Kevin Strathdee lay off over the upright.

Arniston replied with a spell of pressure during which Bobby Nwanze and Lewis Brannan squandered chances.

In the 21st minute the game’s solitary counter arrived.

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Kevin Strathdee sprayed the ball to the feet of Lewis Swaney and making use of the space he had been given, the big striker found the net with a sweetly struck drive.

Apart from Brannan and Steven Anderson coming near to scoring for the visitors, the remainder of the first period was a scrappy affair that did not have much to offer.

The opening stages of the second half however brought about some sparkle.

Daniel Chandler twice came near to getting on the home scoresheet by first of all heading a Kevin Strathdee corner kick past the target and then shooting wide from a Sam Kelly pass.

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Sandwiched in between this Hawick keeper Ewan Reilly denied Arniston an equaliser in tipping a net bound Chris Ingles shot over the upright.

Reilly was to show his mettle again later on when pulling off impressive stops from Brannan and Elliot Grieve.

The closing minutes saw both sides go for it but there was to be no addition to the scoring.

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