It was another tremendous physical contest between Hawick and Currie at Malleny Park yesterday, with the Greens left ruing a slow start which saw them ultimately leave themselves with just too much to do, losing out 36-31 to the Chieftains.
As Heriots did last week, Currie came out of the blocks quickly and caused the Greens problems from the whistle with their physicality and accuracy at the set piece. Hawick found it difficult to contain some of the strike runners, and were starved of ball in the early stages, with Currie finding their way through the Hawick defence to take a 12-0 lead after ten minutes.
The Greens then settled down and put together some decent passages of play, which almost bore fruit, but for a foot in touch by winger Morgan Tait. Their first score did come however, through hooker Russell Anderson after a series of pick and drives by the pack, Kirk Ford converting.
Unfortunately Currie struck back to open the gap again, before a fine try by the Greens. Number 8 Jae Linton broke through in midfield and found Hector Patterson with a deft inside pass and following fast recycled ball a copybook line run by Andrew Mitchell saw him in under the sticks for a fine try.
This brought the score to 22-12 with halftime approaching, however the Greens will be kicking themselves for allowing Currie to cross once again for their bonus point try before halftime, meaning they turned around 29-12 down.
Hawick knew they had to score first in the second period to stay in the fight and they did so following good field position and a 5 yard scrum, Patterson broke right to feed Morgan Tait who dived over in the corner.
The Greens went so close to reducing the deficit further when Kirk Ford intercepted deep in his own half and cleverly kicked downfield for the live wire Hector Patterson to chase and kick on, only to be denied by a wicked bounce of the ball as he dived to get his hand on the ball.
Once again however, Hawick will be disappointed to concede a further score when on the front foot, leaving them 36-17 adrift.
But the Greens redoubled their efforts and although an unfortunate injury meant the loss of the influential Fraser Renwick, with the introduction of their bench they fought their way back into the game, forcing Currie into error after error. From a line-out in the corner a powerful forward drive saw hooker Russell Anderson bulldoze over from his second try, and then from a mix up in the Currie line-out deep in their own 22, panic ensued and pressure from the Hawick lads resulted in Anderson pouncing on a loose ball to score his third try, taking the score to 36-31.
With 5 minutes to go the Greens threw everything at a very nervous home defence, however although they came close, through skipper Shawn Muir, Hawick couldn’t cross the whitewash to take the victory.
Ultimately, although far from satisfied with the result, the two point haul (a loosing bonus point and try bonus) will, like every point earned this season will be extremely valuable to the Greens, in what continues to be a very tight league.
