The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
1872 Cup back with Glasgow Warriors
G rugby’slasgow edged a seven-try thriller to wrestle possession of 1872 Cup back from Edinburgh.
Richard Cockerill’s team had held the inter-city silverware for the last three years but tries from Cole Forbes, Fotu Lokotui, Fraser Brown and Kyle Steyn handed Warriors the decisive victory.
Edinburgh’s forward power saw Dave Cherry, Pierre Schoeman and Stuart Mcinally crash over but their late charge fell flat at Scotstoun.
In a bad-tempered affair, both teams made use of the new captain’s challenge rule being trialled in the Guinness PRO14 Rainbow Cup to successfully alert referee Adam Jones to red card offences, with Edinburgh’s Mark Bennett and Warriors prop Oli Kebble sent off.
Gregor Townsend and
Steve Tandy were in attendance to watch three of the men they recommended Warren Gatland call up to the British and Irish Lions, Edinburgh’s Duhan Van Der Merwe and the Glasgow duo Zander Fagerson and Ali Price.
And Price had a role in the opening try inside 15 minutes.
With Glasgow already leading through a Ross Thompson penalty, the scrum-half’s short-ball for Forbes caught Edinburgh completely by surprise as the full-back darted past the sleeping WP Nel to score.
But the first signs that disciplinary standards would slip came after 20 minutes as Fraser Brown’s needless shove on Van Der Merwe when Glasgow had already won a penalty proved costly.
It gave the visitors field position in the Warriors’ 22 and they made the most of their territory gain as Cherry scored off a wellworked line-out maul.
Glasgow went straight up the pitch to score again 90 seconds later as Fotu Lokotui wriggled over. But when Warriors lock Rob Harley was sin-binned after ignoring repeated warnings about breakdown infringements, Schoeman was able to take advantage to squeeze over for another Edinburgh score.
Then came the TMO drama as Glasgow skipper Brown used the most of his new powers to alert the officials to Bennett’s high hit on Price.
Harley was just making his way back on before the interval when Glasgow were back to 14 men as Edinburgh captain Grant Gilchrist complained about Kebble’s elbow on Henry Pyrgos.
Danny Wilson would have been furious with the prop’s moment of madness but his half-time mood was brightened by the sight of Brown crashing over between the posts for Glasgow’s third.
The rule experiment meant both sides were able to replace their dismissed players after a 20-minute period but Glasgow had already chalked up the bonus point by then as Forbes’ long pass found the unmarked Steyn to dot down in the corner.
Edinburgh hit back with their third as Mcinally hared off the back of a maul to score down the short side.
They were given late hope when Richie Gray was sin-binned as Warriors coughed up penalty after penalty. But Mcinally was denied his second by Ratu Tagive’s last-gasp challenge. ● Conor Murray celebrated his British and Irish Lions selection with a try in Munster’s 38-10 Rainbow Cup thumping of Ulster at Thomond Park.
Rory Scannell and Mike Haley also touched down to make it 19-3 at half-time, the latter score coming after Ulster’s Will Addison was sent off for a high tackle.
Ulster captain Iain Henderson snapped back with an early second-half score, but a dominant Munster made it back-toback victories as Scannell, JJ Hanrahan and Andrew Conway made it a six-try success.