Hawick are clueless as Heriot's run riot in 12-try demolition

It wasn't the heaviest defeat Hawick have suffered in their 145-year history but it must surely have felt like it. If Heriot's full-back Ross Jones kicked more conversions '“ he missed seven out of 11 attempts '“ it would have been a whole lot worse.

Lee Armstrong, scorer of Hawicks solitary try, holds on to Heriots flanker Jack McLean. Picture: Ian Georgeson

It was still a humiliating experience for the Greens, a fourth defeat in a row with 12 tries conceded and 26 overall in the league. There were few, if any, saving graces to be picked out of the carnage on the pitch.

Hawick sensed that a hiding of this magnitude was coming after losing their first three games. Former Gala coach George Graham has already been brought in as an assistant to get more out of the forwards at scrum and breakdown and, after a week in the job, he will have seen the enormity of the task in hand.

Head coach Darren Cunningham said: “I don’t know where to start. I’m in charge and take full responsibility for the result, but we all have to collectively stand up and have a look at ourselves. We are looking good in preparation for games but then, in games, it just looks like we don’t know what we are doing.

“We need to start playing rugby and we need to defend properly and not panic. Harsh words have been said in the dressing room and more harsh words will be said at training, but we have just got to keep plugging away. There are a lot of things good about us too. It didn’t look that way today, but we have to stick together and work hard. We may have to strip it back right to the very basics.”

From Heriot’s point of view, their performance was an indication of how well they are getting their act together after steadying a poor start to the season with a win over Hawks the previous week following two losses. But coach Phil Smith was far from satisfied with the clinical demolition job.

“We had some good bits obviously,” Smith said, “but it was very much open-play stuff. I didn’t feel we constructed many tries. It was turnover, a couple of phases and score.

“We are going to have to work hard on some parts of our game that were pretty poor.”

The scoring included a hat-trick of tries by former club captain Jack Turley in the back row, returning to the team after spending last season in England and instantly impressing with his skills and leadership.

Others came from blindside Michael Maltman, centre Robbie Mulvanee, left winger Craig Robertson, lock Callum Marshall, prop Stuart Cessford, full-back Jones, replacement Alex Ball, right winger Charlie Simpson and scrum-half Tom Wilson.

Lee Armstrong’s interception score did spare the Borderers a whitewash, but not their blushes.