Glasgow Hawks back to winning ways against Stirling

Glasgow Hawks got back to winning ways in the BT Premiership with a 10-3 victory over Stirling County at Old Anniesland. After losing three in a row in recent weeks, Hawks persevered in wet conditions to see out the match after leading 7-3 at half-time.Stirling challenged in the second-half through several phases of play deep inside their opposition’s half, but Hawks kept them at bay until the final whistle.Head Coach, Gary Mercer, said: “We played the difficult conditions really well and I thought the boys were outstanding defensively.”Great credit to Sterling, they kept going and it made us dig deeper and we came up with the result we needed.”It was Stirling who opened the scoring through a successful penalty from Jonny Hope inside the 12th minute, before several exchanges between the two sides resulted in unforced errors.Stirling’s out-half Shaun Treweek was later charged down on the five-metre line as Hawks gathered possession to see Jack MacFarlane over for the try before Pierre Mounal converted in the 21st minute.Both sides had opportunities to score with the boot before the interval, Mounal hitting the post with a penalty attempt and Hope sending the ball wide for a half-time score of 7-3.Difficult conditions resulted in errors from both teams in the remaining half but it was Hawks who grew their lead through a Mounal penalty after an infringement in the scrum.Stirling utilised their bench around the 60-minute mark, making several key positional changes as they began to pressurise the Hawks defence.The visitors had the majority of possession in the closing ten minutes and came close on several occasions through their pack.A penalty deep inside Hawks’ 22 resulted in a put in at the scrum for the hosts, who found Erlend Oag to kick into touch for the close of play.Elsewhere in the BT Premiership, Boroughmuir edged out Melrose 19-18 at home, Currie won 46-29 on the road to Selkirk, Ayr maintained their position at the top with a 20-13 win over Gala at Millbrae, and Heriot’s defeated Hawick 11-0 at Mansfield Park. Glasgow Hawks: Robbie Houliston, Erlend Oag, Brendan McGroarty CAPTAIN, Max MacFarlane, Pierre Mounal, Josh Henderson, Paddy Boyer, Jerry Yanuyanutawa, Jack Macfarlane, Gary Strain, Andrew Kirkland, Andrew Linton, James Eddie, Stephen Leckey and Andrew Hill. Replacements: Grant Stewart, Steven Findlay, Andrew Redmayne, David Milne and Sean Yacoubian. Stirling County: Dylan Taikato-Simpson, Jonny Hope, Nick Grigg, Cammie Hughes, Danny Gilmour, Shaun Treweek, Patrick Nicol, Alex Allan, Reyner Kennedy, Gary Mountford, Ed Howgate, Ruairidh Lieshman, Shaun McDonald, Mike Dewar and Vaka Manu.Replacements: Cameron Fenton, Mark Hunter, Stefan Yarrow, Alex Black and Matt Lamb.