HAWICK 8, AYR 19
After last weeks very dissappointing defeat at GHA, a win was very much order of the day to get the league campaign back on track and to regain some much needed confidence. But with the dreadful weather conditions and the very heavy underfoot condtions this was always going to be a very task against the powerful Ayr pack. Hawick's cause was not helped by giving away some needless penalties and by choosing to run penalites in their own half and then losing the ball when a kick to touch into the Ayr half and restarting play would probably have been the better option on the day.
Hawick indeed did start very positively and took the play to Ayr and this paid early dividends. From an initial break by young Michael Graham, fullback Colin Murray barged his way over in the corner for the best possible start after two minutes. Craig Neish failed with the difficult conversion. With the conditions making handling very difficult, unforced errors came from both teams. Hawick did have Ayr in the defensive role for lenghty periods but the Ayr tackling was solid and managed to hold their line intact. Ayr slotted a penalty and scored a converted try just before the interval to turn round 10 points to 5 in front.
Hawick return to the pitch with a change of strip and Hawick did have sustained pressure but again were unable to breach the Ayr defence, a penalty after 45 minutes was all they had to show for their efforts to reduce the deficit to 8-10. The big Ayr pack were now starting to to take control and Hawick started to give away silly penalties. As previously mentioned, when Hawick were awarded two penalties, they chose to run them and on both occasions they lost the ball. Ayr were now nine points in front and the match was into the final minutes. Hawick, to their credit, did have Ayr camped on their line with some determined forward play but the Ayr defence held firm to record a hard fought victory by 18 points to 9.

Team:- Colin Murray, Rory Scott, Rory Hutton, Craig Neish, Michael Graham, Barry Sutherland, Kevin Reid, Brad Turnbull, Simon Fleetwood, Geoff Cross, Ryan Hogg, Michael Robertson, Nick McTaggart, Andy Wilson and David Lowrie
Subs:- Greg Goodfellow, Craig Charters, Gavin Petrie, Nicky Little and Sean Linton

None of the players who took part in this fast, open, hard fought game, in which the result was undecided until the final whistle, would have any difficulty getting to sleep last Friday as the Academy came away with a narrow 4 point victory. With a chill wind blowing accross Riverside Park, the opening exchanges gave no hint of what was to come. With poor handking by both sides resulting in a series of scrums, interlaced by a string of penalties as referee Bob Nevins tried to erase negativity at rucks, giving a stop/start game.However, the ball retention improved and the players stopped slowing the ball down allowing quick ball to two teams keen to play open rugby, and test the opposition defence to the limits.
I wasn't until just after 30 minutes when the Academy broke the stalemate, a missed kick to touch by Jed was fielded by Neil Mccolm, who took off on a run from inside his own half. On reaching the homesides 22 he passed to Greg Thomson, who commited the last defender before giving to the supporting Neil Douglas who crossed for the try. Neil Renwick converting for a 7 - 0 lead. Jed, who had shown they were in the mood to turnover the league leaders, replied with a penalty by Glen Miller and a 7 - 3 half time score.
The Academy brought six players off the bench at the interval and it looked to have been decisive when they scored two tries in the first 10 minutes of the second half. Firstly Zander Bruce went over after good interplay between him and Greg Goodfellow at a five metre scrum and good play by the side saw Neil Douglas cross for his second of the evening. Neil Renwick added the extras to both and a 21 - 3 lead. Jed's pack had been causing the Academy problems with their driving maul and from a lineout they driove from the 22 close to the visitors line, before second row Lindsay Dickson forced his way over, Miller converting, after 55 mins. Ten minutes later they repeated the exercise and Grant Johnson scored as Millers kick narrowed the gap to 4 points. With the success of this tactic the Royal Blues started to kick to the corners but several line out steals by Craig Charters saw the young greens hold on the victory. Another victory, this week against Peebles would see the Border League title retained, so come on down to Mansfield on Friday night to see the future of Hawick rugby.  

Thanks to Davy Oliver for the match report