Irvine RFC lose out to Glasgow Hawks

Mar 6 2009 by John Woods, Irvine Herald

Irvine Rugby Club, Andy Lang

GUTSY Irvine took Premier One outfit Glasgow Hawks right to the wire in the first round of the Scottish Hydro-Electric Shield at Marress on Sunday.

The game, which was marked by a totally one-sided penalty count in favour of the visitors, saw Irvine welcome back not only former Scottish International and age-group coach Peter Wright, who was coaching Hawks, to Marress but also former Irvine scrum half Euan Morrison who was filling that position for the visitors.

With eight minutes gone Hawks stand-off Noble slotted the first of what was to be an unbelievable number of penalties given against Irvine, and he doubled his tally seven minutes later after a double high tackle stopped the Hawks full-back scoring a breakaway try.

Sean Christie hit back immediately after Hawks were penalised for holding on but Noble stretched the Hawks lead with yet another penalty before Irvine roared back into the game with their first try.

Wilting under terrific Irvine pressure, Hawks tried to run the ball out from their twenty two but Kevin Lang made a trade-mark bone-jarring tackle for Matt Kenny to pick up the fumbled ball and outrun what was left of the Hawks defence for yet a try which Christie was unable to convert.

In 33 minutes Noble kicked a fourth penalty after Tony Wright was yellow carded for allegedly handling on the ground, and four minutes later Andrew Lang joined him on the bench for straying offside at a ruck in front of the posts. Despite being down to 13 men however, Irvine kept thje score down to 12-8 for Hawks at the interval.

Immediately after the restart Hawks used their numerical advantage to stretch their lead after a sustained attack eventually released the ball along their back line for stand-off Noble to stretch forward out of a tackle and score a try.

Although Wright was now back in the fray, Irvine once again went down to 13 when Lewis Armstrong was shown the yellow card after less than a minute on the field and once again Hawks cashed in when Strang was put in for a second try after strong pressure from the visitors. This time Noble converted to give Hawks a 24-8 lead.

However Irvine this season have shown great resilience and, once back to full strength, they went looking for a sensational comeback.

In 59 minutes the pack controlled ball from a line-out and Paul Johnston popped it over the defence where, as usual, man-of-the-match Ruchin Filander chased it and, having driven through the young Hawks winger, he followed up to score in the corner.

This gave the Irvine pack great heart and when, three minutes later, Matt Kenny forced the Hawks defence to carry the ball over their own line, the powerful Ayrshire pack drove the Glasgow forwards over their own line for Filander to get his second try.

But from then on it seemed that every Irvine attack was penalised by the referee and despite every effort, the Maroons could not get the go-ahead score.

Indeed, late into injury time, a series of penalties awarded to Hawks allowed them to take the ball deep into the Irvine half, where Noble slotted his fifth penalty to make the final score 27-18 for the Glasgow side.

However, Irvine, having come out 3-2 winners on the try count, could take great heart from their performance ahead of Saturday’s vital league fixture at Ardrossan.

The Irvine 2nd XV also visit Memorial Field following their demolition of the Ardrossan 2nds two weeks ago, the U18s welcome Kilmarnock to Marress.