Highland relishing big day out after Glasgow Hawks cup draw
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HIGHLAND’S BT Cup draw against Premiership side Glasgow Hawks will be treated like a final by Dave Carson’s side.
The second-round tie will see newly-promoted Highland, just three weeks into their return to the National League, travel to the team fourth in the top tier of Scottish Rugby, in what head coach Carson has billed as a fantastic day out for the club.
November 19 is the big day, with club president Geoff Begg already planning to take an extra bus down from Inverness for supporters wishing to travel to Old Anniesland.
Carson had mixed emotions when first hearing about the draw, but hopes it continues to boost the club’s profile in the rest of Scotland.
“I was disappointed in the respect that I would have preferred a National Two side at home and given them a good game. But basically this is a cup final for us,” he said. “It’ll be really tough – they’ve got three former Highland boys, Paddy Boyer, Bruce Flockhart and Patrick Kelly, which will be interesting. They’ll also have a number of Elite Development players released by Glasgow Warriors to play.
“It’s all great for the club and we’ll be going down there to give a good account of ourselves. I don’t know why, but it’s been scheduled the same day as Scotland play Argentina at Murrayfield. Some of the guys had tickets for that but have said they’re willing to give them up to play. It’ll be a fantastic day out for everyone involved in with the club.”
Highland thumped National Three rivals St Boswells in the first round of the cup, to earn their place in round two. They will be hoping that come the big day they are still in excellent league form, which continued on Saturday with an important 16-3 away win at Haddington.
This game signalled just how tough life in National Three would be for Highland. They started well but despite some good possession they just could not finish off a move. But it was not just Highland mistakes – the home side were very capable defenders and the game looked as though it would be deadlocked until Scott Fraser converted a single penalty to see Highland lead 3-0 at half-time.
In the second-half Haddington struck back with a penalty of their own to tie the score at 3-3. However, Highland stuck to their task with good discipline and some fine defending of their own and slowly better opportunities came along.
First Craig Irvine kicked a penalty after coming on for Fraser, who was having a head knock assessed. This was followed by a try by Stephen Murray converted by the returning Fraser for a 13-3 lead. Highland kept control of the game and extended their lead with another Fraser penalty.
Carson was pleased to see his side pass a tricky away test as well as the performance of those players who made the step up to cover for injuries.
“We’ve spoken about game management a lot – we take the opportunity for points whenever we can and don’t try to run over teams,” said Carson. “To come away from home and take four points from the game is fantastic.
“Every game at this level is going to be like this. They had a fantastic defence and we never got any clean line breaks. But I told the boys at half-time it was a case of not panicking and we didn’t. The game management was crucial and we did it perfectly.”
The second 15 knew they had a tough game away to RAF Lossiemouth on Saturday but it was complicated by several players stepping up and injuries. A weakened side travelled and quickly found themselves up against strong opposition, going down 52-24. Although Highland played some fine rugby they just could not get enough of the ball and were simply out-muscled by the big forces pack.
Out wide things were perhaps in Highland’s favour but without ball the game got away from the visitors. Yet the ability out wide gained four tries from Jamie Rodgers, David Titterington and two from Alex Murray, meaning a very valuable bonus-point.
In the President’s Conference it was another tough weekend for Highland’s junior sides. On Saturday the under-18s were up against another good Stirling County side, going down 33-0. On Sunday it was the turn of the under-15s to fly the flag with a 24-21 victory. The under-16s lost 31-5, while down in Stirling the under-14s had no answer going down 34-0 and the under-13s played well to lose 17-4.
