Only the most sadistic and twisted horror story could have the scenario that led Dundee HSFP to be relegated from the RBS Premiership, but real life turned out to be just that merciless.
It was a play-off they never imagined they’d be in only a year after being one game from the title, the final match of their head coach and probably the last game of a few of the club stalwarts who have been along for the entire ride this last decade.
Defeat and relegation were bad enough on their own, yet the circumstances conspired still further to make this experience just about as excruciatingly painful as it could have been.
There was the 39-38 scoreline, losing out by a point after scoring five tries, right down to the missing tee that compromised a conversion and caused two simple and eventually crucial points to be missed.
The kickers’ tee had been left in the dressing room and, when Jack Steele needed it for the conversion of Richie McIver’s opening try, the scramble to find it got no sympathy from referee Peter Allan.
Steele had to drop-kick the conversion, hit the post, and in a scenario where every point was crucial, it turned out to be the difference.
“It’s never, ever happened before, and I don’t know what happened this time,” said a crestfallen Ian Rankin, bowing out in a way that his efforts for the club and Scottish Rugby simply did not deserve.
“Peter was running the clock down and he stuck to the 90-second rule, which is only right. It’s not good enough, clearly, and at the end of day people will look at the scoreboard and make that calculation.”
To be fair, you could look at many other incidents and issues throughout the entire season that were the cause of High missing out by the narrowest of margins at the conclusion of the season losing a match that should have been won by a point in Gala, the referee not seeing a grounding for a try in the mud against Edinburgh Accies, or Mark Bennett’s try at the death in the last league game against Stirling.
Although High scored five tries on Saturday, three of them were by way of penalty tries forced by the scrummage, and had Allan not been a bit generous, there might have been two more. There could be no complaints that Hawick, and theirmercurial stand-off Rory Hutton, deserved the victory.
“I’d take Hutton any day of the week,” said Rankin, noting that the 10’s opportunistic interception in his own 22 was at least as crucial as the conversion debacle, as he turned it into Keith Davies’ try, which was Hawick’s only real scoring chance of the entire second half.
“All credit to them, they were missing a few guys today and played out of their skins,” continued Rankin. “We were beaten by a team that in the first half looked hungrier than we did.
“Our scrummage did what it usually does, but I was disappointed with our breakdown and collision work, we were penalised a lot for going off our feet, and we left too many gaps. All credit to Rory, he was outstanding.”
When Andy Dymock scored to make it 12-5 after quarter of an hour, you would not have believed that High would turn at half-time 12-26 behind, but they fell out of the game in the second quarter and their defence suspect this season with 81 points conceded in their final two must-win games was not up to the job againstHutton’s promptings.
The fightback, using brute force with Alan Brown marvellously defiant, might have succeeded but for the intercept, yet the more creative and attractive team won on the day.
It was galling to think that High officials had been at Meggetland almost exactly a year ago hoping that Melrose would falter against Boroughmuir to give them a chance of their first national title, but they learned that even a championship contender can quickly become a relegated side in the wild world of Scottish club rugby.
High added only two players for this season, one of whom was a big success in open-side Iain Wilson, but the other, Kiwi Brandyn Laursen, was a flop and left for home early, leaving Steele to fill in at fly-half, which is not his speciality.
A 10 who can kick the pack into positions where they can dominate less powerful teams is essential for next season, although that will not be Rankin’s concern. This was too cruel an exit for such a good rugby man.