Pollock hits out following defeat by five-star Hawick

Hawick emerged from the gloom of a disappointing season with a clinical and confident performance at Mansfield Park that belied their Premiership form so far.

Five tries and a winning bonus won praise from head coach George Graham, who will be hoping for a repeat of last season when he turned around the fortunes of the club.

“I thought we played pretty well. We showed a lot of character and it just shows we are a good bunch of players,” he said. “A lot of the rugby we showed was exciting. We executed our moves very well, we stepped up and we need to show the same next weekend.”

Lee Armstrong, pictured, was arguably the man of the match with two tries and the conversion of all five, but replacement prop Pietro Ceccarelli added expertise to a powerful forwards display ably led by Shawn Muir.

For County, it was a day to forget. “This was not acceptable,” said coach Eddie Pollock. “After half an hour, we were awful. For six minutes before half-time and six minutes after we did not defend.”

Hawick played with an aggression that spoiled the party for the Super Six hopefuls, who led 10-7 after 17 minutes.ha wick then seized control with powerful running and solid defence before Alasdair Mackie broke their line – but too late. The hosts led 21-10 at the break with two tries from Armstrong and a touchdown by Keith Young to an Andrew Goudie try and conversion and Goudie penalty.

Deaglan Lightfoot’s try from Armstrong’s break after the interval sealed all the points before Young and Mackie exchanged scores in the final ten minutes. Now Graham needs an away win to continue the revival.