Hawick 23-41 Watsonians

HAWICK face a long, hard season after they lost their sixth successive Premiership game under an avalanche of tries on Saturday at Mansfield Park – but with a belief they can turn the season around.

It looked promising for the Greens, who led 13-3 at the break, but with the wind behind them and the subtle use of two substitutes after the interval, Watsonians swept the hosts aside, starting with four tries in just 12 minutes.

Hawick’s Director of Rugby, Brian Renwick, was disappointed to see two former Gala players, Craig Borthwick and Euan Dods, along with three of the Hawick ex-players, Scott McLeod, Rory Hutton and Ross Graham, in the opposite camp – and to lose the game.

“It is difficult to watch (in these circumstances), but it is a semi-professional game and that is the world that we are in. But we will fight until the very last game of the season,” he said.

“We knew that we would be up against it in the second half with the wind, but I was quite confident. However, the four tries put us out of the game totally, but we showed great spirit to come back.”

Coach Steve Lawrie praised his Watsonians players. “It was a tough game. I never said anything at half-time. It was down to them (players) to turn it round and the mentality of the boys saw us through.”

Watsonians brought on Rory Drummond and Chris Dean for the second half and they added extra pace and dynamism to the performance, which produced six tries.

Hawick battled hard to get back into the contest with tries from Keith Davies and Lewis Ferguson, but they were always facing an uphill battle.

Hawick were ahead at the interval thanks to a try on the stroke of half-time from Dom Buckley after a forwards’ drive with Watsonians’ Jamie Hodgson in the sin-bin. Ali Weir converted to add to his two penalties with Andrew Chalmers kicking his side’s penalty.

But the inclusion of Dean and Drummond changed the tempo of the game with two tries each and James Miller adding the fourth.

Davies’ try was cancelled out by Dean, converted by Chalmers. And Ferguson and Chalmers, who converted his own try, exchanged the final scores.

Hawick: L. Armstrong; L. G. Woolley, G. Johnstone, D. Buckley, L. Ferguson; A. Weir, G. Cottrell; S. Muir, F. Renwick, N. Little, D. Redpath, D. Lowrie, G. Graham, S. Graham, R. Gibson. Replacements: M. Carryer, M. Landels, K. Bryce, K. Davies, K. Brunton.