Hawick hoping to follow up 55-5 win against Musselburgh by doing double

The Greens beat Musselburgh home and away last Tennent’s Premiership rugby season – 36-12 in the Borders in January and 46-29 at Stoneyhill last October – and Douglas want to see them repeat that feat this time round with a win on the road this coming Saturday, kick-off being at 2pm, to keep up their unbeaten start to the season.

“We’re pretty pleased with our performance and we’re rolling into what is a double-header at Musselburgh next weekend,” he told Borders Rugby TV afterwards.

“It will be another big challenge for us to go away from home and try to replicate that performance today but we’re looking forward to it.

“We’ll work on a few things this week and we’ll be ready to go on Saturday against Musselburgh again.”

Hawick go into their rematch against the East Lothian side a point ahead of Edinburgh’s Currie Chieftains at the top of the table, with 48 points from 11 games.

That’s nine places in the standings and 39 points better off than their upcoming hosts, currently propping up the table after losing ten of their 11 games so far this campaign and winning only one.

Hawick’s try-scorers at the weekend were Lewis Ferguson, Ross Graham at the double, Ronan McKean, Andrew Mitchell, Calum Renwick, Dalton Redpath, Shaun Fairbairn and Fraser Renwick, four of them converted by Kirk Ford and one by Kyle Brunton after Ford was sin-binned, with Michael Badenhorst getting their visitors’ only touchdown.

Douglas was delighted with his team’s showing, especially in the first half, that being when 41 of their points were accrued, saying: “It was a big result for us at home, another five points, and we keep moving forward.

“I think there was pressure on us again to perform. There have been in the last couple of weeks a few mentions that we haven’t performed to our best and that was a challenge for the players – just to be bit more clinical in the opposition’s 22.

“We felt that in the last couple of weeks, especially against Jed-Forest, that we didn’t quite turn the pressure and territory that we had into points.

“Credit to the players, in that first half, we scored some really good team tries and built a lot of good phases and really stretched Musselburgh’s defence to go in at half-time 41-0 up, so it’s that we were able to react.

“In the second half, we dipped a bit in our work-rate – I think that was probably the big thing – and also gave away a few penalties in the middle of the park that kept Musselburgh in it, so it was a tale of two halves, but we were still pretty happy with our second half. We got another few scores and were able to empty the bench pretty quickly and get a lot of boys game-time.”

Douglas singled out loosehead prop Shawn Muir, making his 200th appearance for the club at the age of 29, for praise, saying: “There were a lot of big performances again.

“Credit to Shawn Muir on making 200 appearances for Hawick. He really leads by example and put in a man-of-the match effort today, so well done to him.”