Saturday 13 September 2008

For God's Sake Catch the Ball

I honestly can’t remember a time when I saw Boroughmuir drop the ball more than they did against Currie. Honestly, I reckon the egg hit the floor more often than in the entire of last season. I hope some araldite has been applied to the hands of certain players in preparation for the Hawks match.

I went along with a fair dose of optimism. OK, we hadn’t been perfect against Accies and the weather wasn’t exactly as we’d have liked it but even the Prophet of Doom wasn’t particularly vocal – which is about as close as he ever comes to optimism. The two wins against Currie last season were amongst our more straightforward, and after the chastening experience of having eighty points put on us two years ago, I was convinced we wouldn’t let it happen again.

If I’m being truthful though, some might say a bit harsh, it was as bad a performance this time around as it had been back in Currie’s title winning year. The significant difference in the score line, for me, was largely down to the fact that the hosts are far from the level they reached back then.

The game was the first appearance of the season for my brother, the ‘auxiliary’ Webmonkey, who is generally charged with picking up ‘interesting’ camera shots. He’s usually a good omen as well. In his most recent appearances he’s seen wins over Ayr, Hawick and Watsonians, so his presence was another notch on the optimism belt.

Given the result, however, he’s been issued with a three match ban. We need wins over the next few weeks to ensure that we don’t fall too far behind and we can’t take the risk of him being an bad omen. So the earliest we could see him again would be the trip to Myreside – though I might try to think of some excuse to keep him away from that one as well.

Hawks this week will be tight. It always seems to be so against the team I somewhat see as our West Coast counterparts. Like us they always try to play good rugby, and now with Peter Wright in charge there’s even more reason to like them. And without the Prophet of Doom for the next few weeks either – he’s been sent away to the south of France – I’ll get to watch the match in unobstructed optimism, it’ll be a disconcerting experience.

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