Hawick head coach Matty Douglas hoping to halt losing streak at Marr

Hawick beating Marr 20-3 at home at Mansfield Park in October (Pic: Malcolm Grant)

Hawick head coach Matty Douglas is champing at the bit to resume his side’s challenge for rugby’s Tennent’s Premiership title after being denied a chance of one last hurrah for 2022 at the weekend.

The table-topping Greens were due to host seventh-placed Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians on Saturday but that match, along with the rest of the premiership’s fixture card, had to be postponed due to their pitch at Mansfield Park being frozen solid, leaving them at a loose end for the second weekend on the trot.

Hawick, in pole position with 57 points after winning 12 and drawing one of their 13 league games so far this season, are now out of action until they head west to South Ayrshire to take on Marr on Saturday, January 7, with kick-off at 2pm.

The Troon outfit, last season’s play-off champions, are currently fifth in the table, 20 points worse off than their hosts, but Douglas isn’t reading too much into their place in the standings, having lost there twice last season, by 17-10 in the play-offs in March and 21-10 the month before, though they did beat them by 26-19 at home the preceding October and by 20-3 this campaign in October.

“Marr will be tough,” he said. “We played them in the play-offs last year, and we got beat twice over there. It’s not been a kind place for us.”

Though only 27, Douglas, in his second season as Hawick’s head coach after replacing Stuart Johnson in 2021, already has six years’ experience of coaching under his belt after bouncing back from the disappointment of having his playing career curtailed by injury.

“I played for Whitecraigs for a number of years and for Kelso, where I was a stand-off, but I had to retire through injury,” recalled Douglas, an information technology specialist for an agricultural machinery dealership by trade.

“I had to get a replacement hip and I can’t play contact sport, so I got into coaching six years ago at Whitecraigs’ seconds and I’ve just progressed basically right up through.

“27 is very young and I think I'm by far the youngest head coach in the league and just about in Scotland. There are not many below 30, to be fair.

“It’s a lot of work, almost a full-time job. It takes up a lot of time, but when you’re winning and you’re seeing results, it makes it worthwhile, and there are loads of opportunities out there to try to go further, so that's the goal.”