GLASGOW HAWKS 18 MUSSELBURGH 32

After their earlier season cup success, Musselburgh made it two wins from two against Hawks with victory at Balgray, writes Iain Hay.

Musselburgh’s 1-2 combination of Robert Stott and Paul Portsmouth dotted down from close range either side of an exchange of penalties by Hawks’ Liam Brims and Burgh’s Danny Owenson, before Andy Kirkland saw yellow for an accumulation of penalties against the home side. Owenson took the threepointer to make the score 6-20 at half-time.

When Kirkland returned, it was time for Musselburgh to go down to 14 men, Euan Bonthron binned after Hawks had won a succession of scrum penalties five metres from the Burgh line.

Yousef Alagily scored in the right corner to give the home side some hope but further tries by Paul Cunningham and tighthead Colin Arthur, completing the front-row hattrick, sealed the deal before a late consolation score by Ryan Sweeney.

With his side still winless in the current campaign, Hawks’ coach Andy Hill was left looking for the positives. “I honestly believe we’ve got a really good team here,” he said. “It’s just down to the boys to have the maturity and the belief to go and execute.”

Having leapfrogged their opposition in the league table, Musselburgh’s Graeme Paterson felt his side could kick on after a tough trio of opening fixtures. “I think we have to put it into a bit of context,” he said. “Three really tough games first off, but now hopefully we’ll have a bit more parity in terms of possession and see what we can do with it.”