WARRIORS FACE CARDIFF
Williams back for Blues as Glasgow gear up
TEAMS may have lost their opening two European Champions Cup matches and still reached quarter-finals before, but Glasgow Warriors head to Cardiff Blues tomorrow knowing they must respond to last weekend’s defeat at the hands of Saracens.
If they cannot win in the Welsh capital against a side that is playing in this competition for the first time in five seasons, what chance would they have at the business end of the pool competition when they head to the outskirts of the English capital to meet a team that has claimed the title of European champions twice in that period?
Yet the corollary is that the Warriors would be close to becoming favourites to claim one of the best runners-up spots if they can defeat Cardiff, such is their remaining sequence of matches. It would be one of the biggest shocks in the competition’s history if Lyon were to win at Saracens today and, having already lost to the Blues, the still relative newcomers to the French Top 14 will surely have switched focus to domestic matters by the time their double-header with Glasgow takes place in December.
That provides the prospect of it coming down to a February meeting between Glasgow and Cardiff, which is why so much rides on tomorrow’s match.
“It is pretty tough, isn’t it?” Glasgow coach Dave Rennie said. “If we lose this weekend, it is not impossible, but what it would mean is that we would definitely have to beat Saracens away from home and pick up some bonus points as well as looking to win every game. It will be pretty tough and we are well aware of that.”
Glasgow can draw some confidence from having beaten the Welsh side home and away in the Pro14 last season and they have an excellent record against them in that competition.
“They have a few different personnel [and] it is always an arm wrestle down there,” Rennie noted. “We only just pipped them in Cardiff and I was down there the year before when Cardiff beat the Warriors. They are a good side, they had a pretty good season last year after a slow start and they are pretty similar this year, three losses and then in pretty good form. Our focus is on us, we have got to play with the same intensity as we did last week but be more clinical, more patient. That has been the focus this week.”
It has been clear this season that there is an awareness at Glasgow that for all that their high octane playing style of recent years has been sufficient for a team packed with international players to overrun most of their Pro14 rivals, they have remained something of a soft touch when the leading English, French, Irish and even Welsh sides have picked their strongest teams and moved into European mode, those 2013/14 meetings with Cardiff having been just one of many examples of that.
However, in seeking to guide the players on showing more patience against the better opponents they will face this season, there was always a danger of over-cautiousness entering the psyche and Rennie hinted at that having been a consideration as he outlined the need for a balance to be struck in terms of recognising when even a defence of Saracens’ quality has been stretched to breaking point.
“It is funny when you look at games,” he said. “We had opportunities to play last weekend. We shortened the defence up and had a chance to play with a bit of width.
“When we shared that with the boys, we had a few opportunities that might have put them under a bit more pressure.”