Rugby Club ISSUE 80 | Page 82

Hawick Quins Hawick Quins FOLLOW US ONLINE TWITTER.COM/RUGBYCLUBMAG “My brother, Adam Hepburn, used to play for the club before he passed away. The club put my brother’s name on the shirt sleeve of one of the kits and presented his shirt to my nephew. I’ve sponsored the club for six seasons now and go to a lot of their social functions. I know a lot of the guys at the club and the work ethic there is something to be proud of. I hope that they can continue to progress while remembering where they come from and would like to take this opportunity to wish them the best of luck for the future.” Hawick Quins H RUGBY FOOTBALL CLUB awick Quins RFC enjoyed the most successful season in their history last time around and has been working hard to make sure that they are well prepared for the new campaign. Rugby Club Magazine recently caught up with Club Representative Craig Richardson to find out more. Involvement He told us, “I have been involved with Hawick Quins now for eleven years and was first involved when I was eighteen years old, moving up from U18s rugby. I was pulled into the then current Quins Presidents office in our local pub ‘Jock Reids’ and was quizzed about where I was moving on to play senior rugby. Up until that point I hadn’t given it much thought but Phil Nichol sold me it on the fact that the Quins are a fun, enjoyable and social club with a great bunch of boys, which it is!” The Role “Back in preseason in 2014 I suffered a ruptured ACL and in 2015 had it reconstructed. I loved playing but had given up on the realistic chance of being able to recover to play again and took up the role of team manager. However, when struggling for front row one week in 2016 I jumped straight in with both feet when given the chance to play again and ever since then I’ve been juggling the duties of team manager and playing and training every week. 82 Issue 80 John Hepburn, J Hepburn and Co J. Hepburn & Co. Northhouse is a Family run hill/upland farm offering contracting services as well as high quality pedigree livestock. T: 07989921282 E: [email protected] A: Northhouse Farm Teviothead TD9 0LE We also made it to Silver Saturday at BT Murrayfield in the BT Shield Final where we finished runners up to Carrick, now three times winners of the Shield. But the experience of getting to the Shield Final was just as good as what the win would have been. We set our targets at the beginning of the season and that was to be league winners and get to the shield final, and to say after nine months of hard work you achieved your goals is pretty impressive.” What Next? “During the off season our plan is the same as always, attract new blood to the club. Hawick has a very different rugby culture to the rest of the country, a town of 16,000 people (roughly) and four adult rugby teams with only two U18 feeder teams. The battle for young talent is always tough so targeting players who have drifted away from the game and It’s a tough mission some weeks when your mind is focussed on trying to drag boys to training and trying to raise a team and finding a balance between getting the manager job out of my head and switching to game day mode is quite a challenge. However it’s a challenge I enjoy and this seasons success as BT East League 1 winners and BT Shield Runners Up makes it all the more worthwhile.” Atmosphere “At the moment the club is on a massive high. It’s been the most successful season in our history and most importantly, we are a group of close friends doing the thing we love. Winning has played a massive part in the high spirits but it’s really down to the camaraderie in the squad.” Last Season “As mentioned before, this season has been the most successful the Quins has ever had. We won East League 1 for the very first time by a wide margin, winning 18 out of 19 league games, losing only once. www.rugbyclubmag.com 83