Hawick turn to former Scots prop Graham as they bid to rescue season
Hawick have named former Scotland prop George Graham as their new head coach as they try to recover from an extremely poor start to the BT Premiership season.
The Greens have lost their first seven matches in the top flight to leave them seven points adrift at the bottom on only five points.
After the club’s latest defeat on Saturday, the Mansfield Park committee decided that Graham, brought in last month to assist with firstteam coaching, should replace Darren Cunningham at the helm.
Cunningham, the former Jed-forest and Kelso coach, only took over at Hawick in the summer, but the side have been leaking far too many tries and the club cannot afford to be cut any further adrift or BT National League Division One rugby for next season would beckon.
It is thought that Cunningham is still mulling over an offer to remain on board as part of the coaching set-up while player/coach Craig Hamilton,theformerscotland cap, is still there.
The final straw for Cunningham came at Meggetland against Boroughmuir on Saturday, the visitors leaking ten tries in a 60-18 defeat.
Cunningham said: “We have been training well between games and the guys have been feeling good and organised, but, as soon as we get on the pitch, we make silly mistakes and we seem to freeze at times.
“If you miss the number of first-up tackles that we have, then you will always be struggling to get into matches.”
Hawick are at home to Ayr this coming weekend and they finish the first half of the league campaign away to leaders Melrose the following weekend.