Ill wind blows Currie no good as Hawick go nine points clear at top of rugby’s Tennent’s Premiership table

A home play-off semi-final place is all but assured for head coach Matty Douglas’s Greens after their 14th victory of the current campaign took their points tally to 67 from 15 games, 15 ahead of third-placed Edinburgh Academical.

Hawick’s six tries against Currie, last season’s table-toppers and beaten play-off finalists, were scored by Lewis Ferguson, Ethan Reilly, Andrew Mitchell, Ronan McKean, Stuart Graham and Dalton Redpath, with Kirk Ford adding five conversions and a penalty to take the number of points he’s kicked this season to 111, putting him at the top of the leaderboard.

Currie’s only try was scored by Ryan Stewart and converted by Gregor Hunter.

It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, according to the old saying, and it was exploiting a wintry breeze fitting that description to go 38-0 up by half-time and then holding their own against it after the interval that earned Hawick a bonus-point win against a side in contention for top spot at kick-off, according to Douglas.

“It wasn’t a surprise that we won but it was surprising to be 38-0 up at half-time,” he told us.

“We were expecting a massive battle with Currie, with them being in second place, but I think we just turned the screw in the first half and put them under a lot of pressure and it was always going to be a mountain to climb in the second half for them.

“Performance-wise, that was the best first half I’ve seen in a long time by a Hawick team.

“The conditions played a massive part. There was a strong wind and we played with it in the first half, so we were kind of expecting Currie to get a few more points on the board in the second half, but we defended really, really well.

“We were never going to get a lot of opportunities with the weather and we only got into their 22 once, I think, but we scored.

“I was probably expecting a bit more of a backlash from Currie in the second half, but it was probably our attack in the first half and our defence in the second that won it for us.”

Douglas is also relieved to see his side finally put a bit of daylight between themselves and Currie, saying: “Obviously we’re unbeaten, but Currie had managed to get try-bonuses and losing bonus points.

“Over the last three games, we’ve played the top sides in the league and got try-bonuses, so it’s good to get a wee bit of daylight going into the last three games because we want to finish top of the league.

“We need to make sure we do that, and if we win two of our next three games, we can achieve that.”

Saturday’s victory saw Hawick do the double over Currie, having beaten them 46-25 in the capital in October, and they’ll be hoping to do likewise to Glasgow Hawks this coming Saturday. They beat the Glaswegians 29-12 at home in October and will be targeting a further victory on the road at the weekend to keep their season-long undefeated streak going.