If this had been a boxing match, the referee would have stopped the contest early in the second half. Hawks were so far ahead – fitter, stronger, faster, smarter and more intelligent – that it was a cruelty that Jed-Forest had to carry on for the full 80 minutes.
The Borderers weren’t helped by the needless red-card picked up by No.8 Darren Gillespie around the half hour mark for a second nasty piece of foul play, plus two other yellow-cards shown to Connor Hogg and Gregor Young, but even if they had kept 15 men on the park for the whole game it wouldn’t have been enough to make this a genuine sporting challenge.
Hawks grabbed an early lead with a Ross Thompson penalty and got the first two of their six tries through number eight Gary Adams and hooker Grant Stewart before the break, then ran away with it in the second-half with scores from Sam Yawayawa, Paddy Boyer and Bobby Beattie, plus a penalty try.
The winning team showed a level of ruthlessness which has been conspicuously absent during the second half of this Premiership season, when they slumped to nine consecutive league defeats to wash up second bottom in the Premiership table. A perverse fixture schedule meant that they had to wait seven weeks to play Jed, who finished second in National League One, to decide who will be in the top flight next season. The Anniesland men clearly made good use of the break.
“We got back together, we got a closeness that we needed to get, we had a couple of honest conversations and we pulled ourselves in the right direction,” explained head coach Finlay Gillies.
“The boys have been digging deep – coming in Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturday mornings – we’ve been doing cross-fit classes at 7am on Saturday morning to make sure they are as fit as they can be – they’ve done every little thing that has been asked of them to make sure they are a Premiership club next year.”
Hawks were one of the teams to miss out last Tuesday when the SRU named their teams to take part in the new Super 6 league which kicks-off the season after next. After this performance and result it is hard not to wonder if it is mistake not having a team from Scotland’s biggest city in the competition.
“Hawks have this attitude where people don’t like us – they say we have no history – nobody wants us to win. We’re not like these old clubs such as Jed, who had loads of people come out to watch them today –we’re a performance club and we know our job is to develop talent for Scottish rugby, and that is exactly what we are trying to do. It was tough to have that taken away from us this week, but we’re still fighting. We’ll still be a Premiership club next year,” concluded Gillies.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here