Hamilton bag vital victory
Mcleish grabs last-gasp win
Hamilton .......... 16 Selkirk .............. 15 Hamilton coach David Gemmell says it’s time to show teams what they’re made of, after scraping a much-needed win over Selkirk on Saturday.
Owen Mcleish’s conversion kick from the left touchline put them a point ahead of their visitors to give them a first win in five games.
Gemmell admits his side is in a dogfight in the bottom half of the table, but it’s now time for them to show their mettle.
He said: “To say it was an important win is a bit of an understatement. We lost our last two before the break due to interceptions in the last minute, and it was important to get that our of our heads. It was a pretty good performance, we believed in ourselves, and we got a bit lucky in the end – but I believe you make your own luck.
“It’s important to build on this. We’ve been under-performing and there are various reasons for that. We’ve had to dig deep in putting a squad together, and while there were no major issues with players over the last few years we’re now considerably stretched.
“We’re starting to look a bit like our old selves but we can’t relax, we need to keep focused for the entire 80 minutes. At this level if you lose the ball you concede a try.
“We’re probably going to be up against it every time we go out on the pitch. The teams at the top will probably stay out in front and we’re involved in a dogfight.
“We have to give ourselves as much of a chance as we can, by getting points against everybody round about us. Losing to the two teams below us was a real kick in the teeth.
“We need to be a problem for teams. We know what we’re all about now, so let’s see what we can do.”
Selkirk opened the scoring through a Josh Welsh penalty, but Hamilton overturned this with two kicks from Mcleish for a 6-3 lead.
Hamilton tried to build on this, but couldn’t make a breakthrough despite Selkirk’s Andrew Renwick being sin-binned, and Selkirk took a lead into the interval from a Tythan Adams try, converted by Welsh, for 10-6.
Adam Ryan dislocated an elbow, Stuart Whitelaw was withdrawn with a leg injury, and Hamilton were dealt a further blow when a catch-and-drive led to a score from Catta Graur.
Hamilton attacked again, and Mcleish slotted a penalty.
The Bulls threw everything at Selkirk in the closing stages and were eventually rewarded when Andrew Wilson found Craig Skilling to squeeze in at the corner and Mcleish converted from a tight angle.