Ayr progressed to the BT Premiership play-off Grand Final against Melrose at The Greenyards on April 15 as deserved victors yesterday, but Hawks are due credit for the way they battled throughout.
This was the second meeting in as many weeks between the two teams, but whereas the visitors were comprehensively outplayed in almost every facet of the game in last weekend’s BT Cup semi-final, this time we got a real battle to befit the occasion.
Seven new faces in the side after last week’s hammering – six of them part of the Glasgow Warriors set-up – undoubtedly made a huge difference for Hawks, but the flip-side was that a lack of continuity ultimately proved to be their downfall. Ayr have been building their squad for a number of years and there is a sense of community in the team.
Hawks have a different model at the moment, with a heavy reliance on young players from the Scottish Rugby Academy set-up, who tend to be involved in the national Under-20 programme and eyeing up professional contracts. Individually they are excellent, but they don’t play together every week.
This explains why Ayr made fewer mistakes and showed more composure at key moments. In stand-off Frazier Climo they have probably the best game manager in the league, and he once again pulled the strings like a master puppeteer.
“We knew Hawks would be hurting after last week so the challenge we gave the boys was to take it to the next level in terms of physicality and speed,” home head coach Calum Forrester said.
“I can’t praise the effort of the players enough, or the maturity they showed to wipe the scoreboard clean at half-time and go out and execute what we’ve been practising over the last couple of weeks to nail down the win.”
Ayr drew first blood when Archie Russell went over from close range. Hawks weren’t helped by the fact they played 20 minutes of the first half with 14 men after Stephen Findlay was yellow-carded for a late hit on Ayr hooker Lewis Anderson, with Sean Yacoubian then given the same punishment for a tip tackle on Pete McCallum.
The man advantage finally told, with Grant Anderson and the excellent Danny McCluskey going over before half time.
The hosts got their fourth try through Robert McAlpine at the start of the second-half. Matt Fagerson struck back for Hawks, but Anderson and Ross Curle grabbed two more tries for Ayr.
However, Curle was then sent off for a no-arms tackle on Jack Steele and faces an anxious wait to find out if he will be involved in the upcoming finals.
Hawks were also awarded a penalty try at that point, and the indiscipline continued when Anderson saw yellow for a high tackle on George Horne.
Fagerson scored his second at the death, to give the final score-line a respectability which Hawks undoubtedly deserved.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here