Wilson sees his captain’s aggression as a virtue
Glasgow coach defends booked Scotstoun star
GLASGOW coach Danny Wilson has put up a robust defence of namesake Ryan Wilson after the club captain was yellow- carded at a crucial stage of his team’s defeat by Munster on Monday night.
The Warriors were a man up at Scotstoun following a Munster sin- binning, and had closed to within two points when the forward dived in late on opposition scrum- half Craig Casey. They went on to lose the game 27- 13 – their fifth defeat in six PRO14 outings this season.
Coach Wilson agreed that the skipper’s action had been “a poor decision”, but insisted that in general his combative virtues far outweighed any downside caused by such occasional lapses of discipline. “Ryan Wilson has been absolutely outstanding for this group,” Danny Wilson said. “I’ve been so impressed with his leadership on and off the field. His commitment to Glasgow Warriors is phenomenal.
“Having said that, he is the first to admit he made an error and a poor decision when we’re only two points behind with 10 minutes to go. It’s tough enough against Munster when you’ve got 15 on the park and eight forwards. He fronted up to the group and apologised. He was devastated after the game – that shows the character of the man and his commitment.
“There’s sometimes some overspills from him that happen infrequently. You want Ryan’s edge, competitiveness and aggression. And every now and then you might get a negative with that. But I don’t think this one was any more than a rush of blood and a bad
decision. It cost us and he’s man enough and big enough to put his hand up for that.”
A general melee followed Wilson’s offence on Craig Casey, and the Glasgow forward appeared unhappy about the attention he received. His coach agreed that the captain might not have been the only offender, but said he would leave any other potential action to the authorities.
“There was a bit of handbags after, and on the video there’s certainly a hand that comes across on to the top of Ryan’s head. The camera angle doesn’t show any more than that. We’ll leave that with the relevant people to deal with – the PRO14 takes care of that now, but I know it has been or is still being looked at.”
The Munster loss means the Warriors are eight points adrift of the play- off places in Conference A going into Sunday’s game against Cardiff Blues in Newport. It is a match for which Wilson will again be without a host of players because of international duties and injury.
“I think we’re all fully aware it’s been a difficult period,” he added. “It’s been very, very challenging and will continue to be very, very challenging.
“We’re sat here today with 24 players unavailable to us. That’s a fair number for any squad, especially a squad that wasn’t completed due to the Covid situation. It’s a unique situation. I don’t think we’ve ever been in a situation like this before and I hope we are never ever in a situation like this again.
“But I have seen lots of squad players, I have learned about a lot of younger players, and it means for the future we can make decisions about people with a lot of information. And we can build on some of the experiences that these guys are picking up now.
“So there are positives, definitely. But I’m not going to shy away from the fact we know it’s a tough period.”