GAMES between Gala and Hawick are rarely referred to as friendlies.

But the home side gifted the visitors the game at Netherdale on Saturday after throwing away a 26-7 half-time lead to lose 26-33.

Gala Head Coach George Graham revealed the warm-up game was a useful exercise ahead of the new Premiership season kicking off this weekend.

However, he admitted his side still had lots to work on if they want to repeat their recent success.

Reflecting on the game, Graham said: “In the first half I thought we played very well, we scored a lot of good tries but defensively I thought we were all over the place. Hawick looked really dangerous when they had the ball but, luckily, they either gave away penalties, coughed up the ball or never managed to quite get the ball wide. It’s something we will have to address over this week coming.

“In the second half I made a lot of changes because, at the end of the day, it’s still one of our last warm-up matches and there was a bit of disruption – we had a sin bin which caused us a bit of a problem as well where Hawick scored a couple of tries.

“But other than the fact that we have lost to Hawick and it was a derby match, I’m not too concerned. We’ve had two good games. We had a 26-7 lead at half-time, we gave that up for poor defensive decisions and really lax tackling, and our line-up didn’t function very well, so it’s something we need to iron out.

“But I thought Chris Keen, Luke Pettie and Mattie Carryer, did very well scrummaging against established props from Hawick.”