Seventh heaven for slick Glasgow
GLASGOW eventually shook off their European hangover last night by claiming a seventh successive Pro14 win with seven tries at Scotstoun.
Dave Rennie had made 11 changes to the team which suffered a tortuous two weeks in the Champions Cup — throwing in a new half-back pairing of George Horne and Adam Hastings — but he watched his side lack fluidity in a stuttering first hour.
The last quarter was a different matter, though, as the new-look Warriors finally gelled, with the forwards providing a dominant platform from which they ran in a late flurry of tries.
And with Connacht beating Munster in Galway, they now find themselves with a handsome 12-point lead at the summit of Conference A.
Their South African visitors came to play, blending their notable forward strength with a desire to run the ball, but Glasgow eventually found a return to winning ways following disappointing European defeats to Exeter and Leinster.
Rennie admitted: ‘I wasn’t happy at half-time, because we talked about going through the middle and being direct but we didn’t do that. We were loose and gave the ball back to them far too often. Some of the off-loading tonight, guys just whipping it out their backsides, was not good enough.
‘We started the second half similarly but eventually got into the right part of the ground and I thought our big men up front did a good job. There were some good things and we got some young guys out there who will be better for it next week, but we’ll have to lift it to another gear.’
Despite Glasgow’s blistering start to the campaign, that will be quite a challenge. With 19 Warriors players called up by Scotland and another ten injured — and only a small number expected to be released from the national camp next week — Rennie knows he’ll have to rely on players still learning the game.
Glasgow could hardly have made a better start, centre Sam Johnson brilliantly scything and stepping his way through the Kings’ defence to set up Stuart Hogg for the opening try after just 50 seconds. Only a subtle obstruction was to prevent an immediate response from the South Africans’ flanker Andisa Ntsila.
The Kings’ forward power was quickly to the fore in lineout drives but, bar one 20-metre drive, Glasgow coped well, leaving Masixole Banda to extract just six points from two first-half penalties.
There was some real frustration for the home side after a number of knock-ons and inaccurate passes, summed up when a great try chance for Matt Fagerson was spurned by a pass rebounding off his forehead in front of the posts.
The Kings lost captain Michael Willemse to injury on the half-hour before Glasgow found their finishing touch to open up a 13-point lead.
A slick attack from a scrum on the right of the visitors’ 22 stretched the defence, and excellent clearing out at rucks left a hole for Niko Matawalu to dive through for the score.
Then Nick Grigg finished off a superb series of attacking phases begun by a Hastings break from deep.
The second half was a similar affair involving some bursts of individual brilliance before the home pack finally took a grip of the game.
It allowed Horne to launch attacks far more quickly and the Warriors dominated the last quarter. Zander Fagerson didn’t need phases to break the secondhalf deadlock on the hour mark. When Jonny Gray took a lineout close-in, he timed his pass perfectly for the prop who was rampaging round the front before flattening scrum-half Rudi van Rooyen en route to his first try of the season.
An obstruction by Gray in midfield denied Hogg a second try moments later, but Matt Smith made sure when the pack drove the Kings eight backwards over their own line from a lineout.
Horne added a sixth, burrowing under a ruck on the line with seven minutes remaining.
Although a loose pass from replacement Stafford McDowall allowed Jacques Nel to claim an interception try for the visitors, Glasgow finished strongly with another lineout maul try, this time George Turner scoring in the final seconds.