Guinness pro14 Rennie left shocked as Warriros get ‘spanked’
GLASGOW had expected a demanding opening Guinness PRO14 encounter at the Toyota Stadium in Bloemfontein, but they had not bargained for such a dispiriting start to the new season.
There were mitigating factors in this seven-tries-to-two defeat by the Cheetahs – the Warriors were without 16 players on World Cup duty, while the South African side had been together throughout a victorious Currie Cup campaign – but even so, Dave Rennie admitted he had been surprised by how far off the pace his team had been.
“Yeah, I was,” the head coach admitted. “We expected better. We weren’t good enough today. We were a couple of cogs off. You can get spanked in this competition and that’s what happened.
“We just didn’t so the basics well enough. Our set piece didn’t function, we didn’t tackle well enough: put those ingredients together and you’re going to struggle. They were good. They’re a well-oiled team, played together for a few months. We were miles away from where we needed to be. You can’t build pressure if you can’t hold on to the ball.”
Ruan Pienaar, the scrum-half and captain, masterminded the win by a Cheetahs team who were hungrier, smarter and sharper than their Conference A rivals. He got the ball rolling with the first 10 points for his side, while hooker Joseph Dweba showed how devastating he can be in the loose with two tries.
Glasgow only threatened intermittently, scoring after half an hour through Nick Frisby then ten minutes into the second half through Robbie Nairn. On both occasions the subsequent conversion by Brandon Thomson took them back to within ten points, but each time the South Africans hit back with a score of their own within minutes.
There was encouragement for Rennie in a lively competitive debut in adversity by teenage scrum-half Jamie Dobie, but there were also injuries to several players that will cause concern. Nick Grigg was first off with a knee knock, Andrew Davidson soon followed with suspected concussion, Kyle Steyn’s game ended when he hurt a shoulder, and Matt Fagerson had to go off after a clash of heads with his captain, Callum Gibbins.
Another piece of bad news for Glasgow was confirmed yesterday when it was announced that Ali Price has had surgery on a foot injury and is likely to be out for up to eight weeks. The Warriors scrum-half was injured in Scotland’s opening World Cup game against Ireland on Sunday.
Cheetahs R Smith; W Small-Smith, B van Rensburg, D Swanepoel (L Fouche, 54), A Volmink; T Schoeman, R Pienaar (T Meyer, 65); O Nche (B Venter, 65), J Dweba (R Venter, 65), E de Jager (L de Bruin, 51), S Manjezi, W Steenkamp (J du Preez, 76), G Olivier (J Wiese, 41), J Pokomela (S Koen, 65), H Venter. Tries Pienaar, Dweba 2, Smith 2,