Hawick’s young guns go for it to begin season with win against Currie

Hawick proved too hot to handle for Currie Chieftains on Saturday in their first game in rugby’s Tennent’s Premiership for over a year and a half despite having next to no time to prepare due to the positive Covid-19 test results that forced them to scrap a planned friendly against Kelso a week previously.
By Darin Hutson
Published 7th Sep 2021, 17:25 BST
Updated 7th Sep 2021, 17:56 BST
Hawick's Logan Gordon-Woolley fending off a Currie challenge at the weekend (Photo: Bill McBurnie)Hawick's Logan Gordon-Woolley fending off a Currie challenge at the weekend (Photo: Bill McBurnie)
Hawick's Logan Gordon-Woolley fending off a Currie challenge at the weekend (Photo: Bill McBurnie)

The Greens battled their way to 25-20 opening-day victory at their Mansfield Park home ground over the Edinburgh side and they’ll be hoping to keep up that storming start to the season this coming Saturday away to Glasgow Hutchesons’ Aloysians.

Their opponents will be hoping to bounce back from a 33-13 defeat at East Lothian’s Musselburgh on Saturday, though, so the Greens will have to take their A game to Giffnock if they want to follow up last weekend’s Bill McLaren Shield win by bringing further points back to the Borders.

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The hosts went ahead on six minutes after Shaun Fairbairn emerged from a ruck with the ball and charged over the opposition line unimpeded, Kirk Ford adding the conversion.

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Hawick No 8 Jae Linton scoring a try against Currie Chieftains (Photo: Bill McBurnie)Hawick No 8 Jae Linton scoring a try against Currie Chieftains (Photo: Bill McBurnie)
Hawick No 8 Jae Linton scoring a try against Currie Chieftains (Photo: Bill McBurnie)

A Gregor Hunter penalty and Wallace Nelson saw the visitors overhaul them, but a Ford scrum penalty got the Greens back on top, if not for long, a Ryan Daley try swinging the game back in Currie’s favour.

An unconverted Ronan McKean try just before half-time put Hawick back ahead 15-13, however, and Jae Linton added a third try, with Kirk adding the extras, on the hour mark.

Gregor Nelson then got a try back for Chieftains, with Hunter converting to narrow the hosts’ lead to two points, but Ford scored a penalty with five minutes to go to put his team 25-20 ahead and that’s the way the scoreline stayed.

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New Greens head coach Matty Douglas was delighted by that hard-fought win, afterwards telling Borders Rugby TV: “What a result. I think it showed obviously that there’s been this build-up and they’re a young team, but that was attitude and boys that wanted to play for the jersey, and I’m absolutely buzzing.

“The effort and determination to get that result probably proves all those folk wrong that said we were a young team and would end up near the bottom of the table.

“I’ve got a group of players in there that will do something this season,​​​​​​​ and we just need to keep looking forward week on week, but if we put performances like that in, we’ve no worries at all​​​​​​​.”​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Related topics:HawickFordPremiership