Musselburgh vs Hawick 

The Greens picked up 5 valuable points on the road yesterday, as the defeated a spirited Musselburgh side by 28-43,

The men from the ‘Burgh opened the scoring with a close range effort by their forwards, before Hawick swept up the pitch and following a strong aggressive run by Jae Linton, Charlie Welsh was on hand to take the pass and weave his way over for a score, converted by Kirk Ford 7-7.

Hawick then took the lead, following a forward drive from a line-out which took play to within a couple of metres of the line, from where live-wire scrumhalf Logan Henry burrowed his way to the line, Ford again converting. 7-14.

The game continued to ebb and flow through the first half as both teams probed for openings, and from a surge down the pitch from their #8 Musselburgh were stopped just short by good cover defence, however their forwards were able to drive over and with the successful conversion the teams were level again 14-14.

Hawick pressed on and from another good passage of interplay between forwards and backs, the ever present Andrew Mitchell latched onto a quick feed from a scrum-five and his angled run together with his power and pace saw him cross for his 5th try of the season. The conversion from Ford brought the halftime score to 14-21. 

The Greens hit the ground running after the break, and in the third quarter when they turned the heat up Musselburgh struggled to keep their discipline and their shape. First on the scoresheet was hooker Russell Anderson, from a penalty to the corner and an excellent line out drive he powered over. Second up was stand-off Jack Hocking who sprinted in from distance following clever interplay between Ford and Mitchell in midfield, as they broke out of defence.

Rounding off the bout of scoring was middle row Matt Atkinson who from another forward drive up the pitch, capped off a solid performance on the day by using his strength to break the last line of defence and dive in under the posts. M’burgh 14 - 40 Hawick.

Disappointingly with M’burgh reeling from the Greens onslaught, Hawick succumbed to a couple of moments of madness which coach Graham Hogg will doubtless have noted down, as firstly Murray Renwick and immediately thereafter Fraser Renwick incurred the wrath of the referee and were both shown yellow cards for needless infringements.

Musselburgh took this opportunity to get back into the game and with the two man advantage they duly threw the ball about and with a vocal home crown behind them , they picked up two tries during this period, with Hawick’s only riposte being a timely penalty from the metronomic boot of Kirk Ford. This brought the score to 28-43, and with Hawick duly restored to 15 they managed to keep the Burgh men at bay through the closing stages to pick up 5 well deserved points on the road.

It was great to see further good performances this week from Hughie Donaldson and San Frizzel in the pack, these young lads have improved week on week as they have found their Premiership feet through a challenging set of fixtures.

Next week Hawick will welcome an inform Selkirk to Mansfield Park for round 7 of the Premiership and their first Border Derby of the league campaign🏉💚