Hawick still on top of rugby’s Scottish Premiership table after draw at Currie Chieftains

At 21-7 up with half an hour to go, the Greens looked to be on course for their second win on the bounce away to the Edinburgh outfit after over a decade’s worth of defeats, but their hosts had other ideas and fought back to go 24-21 in front as the final whistle approached at Balerno’s Malleny Park.

A late Kirk Ford penalty salvaged a draw for the Borderers, however – their first since a 20-20 one at home to Selkirk in August 2022 – though Currie ended up with three points to Hawick’s two, thanks to a try bonus point.

That result lifts Currie above Marr in the table after 15 rounds of fixtures – up to second place, with 59 points – but Hawick remain four points clear at the top.

“There’s a bit of frustration there that we couldn’t see it out,” said Douglas.

“We’d played really well in the first half – we put Currie under serious pressure and scored some really good tries – but then some mistakes by us led directly to their scores.

“That was a little bit frustrating, but the big thing for us that we were under pressure for part of the second half and we managed to get back up the other end and get a draw.

“For us, that was quite a big result and I think Currie will be a bit frustrated as they’re chasing us, so I’m really happy with that.

“Currie played well in the second half – they upped their game – and they’re a good side if you let them get going.

“To be honest, we kicked quite poorly. That was the one area that let us down, our kicking game, and if you kick loosely against a team like Currie, they’ll take advantage of that, and they did, so credit to them, but a pat on the back also goes to our boys as they really stood up in the last ten minutes or so and got us back in the game.

“At the end of the day, we’ve only won there once in 12 years, so we’ll take a draw, that’s for sure.

“The stuff we need to work on is probably an easy fix, and everybody’s chasing us, so we just need to keep winning.”

Hawick’s run-in to this season’s play-offs is all on the road, starting with a trip to seventh-placed Musselburgh this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 3pm.

That’s followed by another Edinburgh away-day at fourth-placed Heriot’s Blues on Saturday, January 27, with a 2pm kick-off, and a Borders derby at third-from-bottom Selkirk seven days after that, at 3pm.

The Greens beat Musselburgh by 27-25 in the reverse fixture at Mansfield Park in October and Douglas is hoping for a winning double in East Lothian this weekend, saying: “It will be tough. We’re on a tough run of three away games now but we’re full of confidence. We know we can go to places like that and win but we’re going to have to be a lot better in certain areas than we were on Saturday.

“We’re in a good spot. We’re definitely getting better week on week, and this is the time we want to be hitting form, so that puts us in a great place and the players are really working hard.”

Besides his equalising penalty, Ford touched down one of Hawick’s three tries and converted all of them, the others being scored by Deaglan Lightfoot and Andrew Mitchell.

James McCaig scored two of Currie’s tries, with Joe Reynolds and Ali Bain getting their others and Charlie Brett adding two conversions.