West Division One champions, GHK, fell just short of completing a perfect season after losing to St Boswells in the BT Shield final at Murrayfield on Saturday despite a heroic second half effort by the Glasgow side.
But in the end three second half tries by GHK was insufficient to make up the twenty four four points conceded to an experienced St Boswells side in the first forty minutes. "We gave ourselves a mountain to climb in the second half. We didn't do ourselves justice today. I think we're a better side than that. Had we had another ten to fifteen minutes we probably would have been alright. But it just wasn't to be. It wasn't our day." admitted the GHK captain, Mike Borthwick.
He added : "They were an experienced side but we have experience in our team as well. We were confident going into that match. We've had a great season and we thought we were going to continue today. Credit to St Boswells. They played it well. They gave us a bit of a shock. "
The key for St Boswells' success was the Premiership experience of former Hawick players Dean McCracken at stand-off and Ryan Hogg at number 8, former Selkirk stars Michael McVie at scrum half and player coach David Cassidy at centre, and former Kelso wing Andrew Haig together with a supporting cast that has been through the mill at higher levels. Against this array of experience, GHK were , in the words of Cassidy, 'blown away' in the first half.
Playing clever rugby St Boswells ran in four tries before the break but as the more mature side tired in the second half GHK were able to express themselves with more flowing and adventurous play that brought touchdowns for wings Marc Taylor and Haydn Parkes both from excellent handling and a final score for flanker Jamie MacLean finishing off an incisive run by scrum half Mike Aird.
Full back Scott Robertson succeeded with two conversions but that left GHK trailing 19-27 with twelve minutes of play remaining. St Boswells, however, by running down the clock with tight forward play were able to stop their more youthful opponents from adding any further points to claim the BT Shield title.
Scorers : GHK Tries Taylor, Parkes, MacLean Cons Robertson (2) St Boswells Tries Douglas, Haig, McCracken, Lothian Cons McCracken (2) Pen McCracken
GHK: S Robertson; H Parkes, J Kinane, M Martin, M Taylor; R Long, M Aird; A McCulloch, G Reid, C MacPhee, L Brock, N Hurn, J MacLean, M Borthwick, H Parker.
Replacements: R MacFarlane, C McLay, S Cameron, J Hanks, P Ritchie, G Woolard, R Coates.
St Boswells: G Lothian; J Lebbon, D Cassidy, G Wylie, A Haig; D McCracken, M McVie; B Lilly, G Douglas, T Skeet, B Gilchrist, A Donoghue, J Broom, S Hill, R Hogg
Replacements: D Cowan, L Kibble, S Tomlinson, S Elliot, B Hill, C Brown, I Dawtry.
Referee G Ormiston
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 hereComments are closed on this article