Marr halt 26-match unbeaten streak for Hawick
The Greens weren’t expecting to go all the way through a Scottish Premiership campaign undefeated for the second year on the trot, though, and it’ll have come as no surprise to them either that their 26-game run without ending up on the losing side would be halted at the last place they were beaten, Marr’s Fullarton Park home ground in Troon.
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Hide AdThe defending champions’ last defeat prior to the weekend was by 17-10 away to the South Ayrshire side in March 2022’s top-flight play-off semi-finals, with Marr going on to win the title that time round, but they’d got the better of them four times since – twice in the league, by 20-3 at home last October and 29-10 away in January; in a semi-final play-off, by 18-6 at home in March; and in May’s Scottish cup final at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium, by 31-13.
Head coach Kenny Diffenthal’s team were unwilling to allow the Borderers to extend that winning sequence to a handful of games, however, running two tries past them and kicking four penalties for a 24-5 victory.
Their try-scorers were No 8 Blair Jardine and wing Jake Jacobson, with fly-half Colin Sturgeon adding a conversion and four penalties.
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Hide AdTheir visitors could muster only one unconverted try in response, touched down by scrum-half Gareth Welsh.
Hawick head coach Matty Douglas was disappointed by his side’s performance on the west coast but is hoping Saturday’s loss will prove to be a spur to get back to winning ways.
“I’m really disappointed with the result,” he told Borders Rugby TV afterwards.
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Hide Ad“It’s always a hard one to take when you go so long unbeaten and you’ve not tasted defeat for a long time, but it’s probably what we needed.
“It shows we can’t just turn up at places in the wrong frame of mind and think we’ll get a win.
“Credit to Marr, they were really clinical. They took their opportunities.
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Hide Ad“For us, we just compounded error on error discipline-wise. In the first 20 minutes, we’d be creeping towards double-figures penalty count-wise and got a yellow card for Calum Renwick in that period.
“Looking at the scoreboard, we were 16-0 down after 30 minutes, and it was just one of those games in which we never got going.”
Douglas is hoping for a reaction to his side’s loss in Marr, leaving them seventh in the table on four points from two fixtures, at home to sixth-placed Kelso this coming Saturday.
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Hide AdThat match, both sides’ first Borders derby of the new season, kicks off at Mansfield Park at 3pm.
“We’ve got a group of players that will react to this, 100%,” he said.
“It’ll be a bit of a character test as we go into a Border derby against Kelso but we’ll be back at home.
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Hide Ad“We haven’t become a bad side overnight but we’ve got a lot to fix this week, and a lot of it will come down to players’ attitudes. Can we fix it? I’ve got a lot of faith in them that they will.
“We’ve got a number of senior and quality players throughout our squad and we’re only two games into the season. We’ll be judged on what happens at the end of it.
“If I know this group of players, we’ll get a good reaction and we’ll see if we can put it right next Saturday.”