Groom and capital side cracked the waiting game

Weary Glasgow looking to gain control in re-match

FOR the first 40 minutes on Saturday Glasgow were on top of Edinburgh. For the first 60 minutes they were in contention. For the vital final 20, however, they were second best by some margin, leaving them with a lot of thinking to do before the teams meet again on Friday.

With the 1872 Cup and their hope of a play-off place gone, the Warriors will have little to play for but pride in that match. Pride is usually enough when they line up against their old rivals, but the curious thing in Saturday’s 30-15 defeat was the way in which the fire went out of their game.

They kicked away some possession when they would normally have attacked ball in hand, and notwithstanding a rousing finale in which they just failed to score, they did not look as sharp over the piece as their opponents. According to captain Fraser Brown, that was at least partly down to giving too much ball away.

“We defended a lot in the first half and coped well, but if you’re giving the opposition 65 per cent of possession then you’re going and Nick Haining joined them later to add further bulldozing power to the pack, and scrumhalf Charlie Shiel was not long off the bench before he had wrapped up his team’s victory with their third and final try.

The previous two were scored by the man Shiel replaced, Nic Groom, who was quick to praise his understudy.

“He’s going to be a great player for Scotland one day, I hope,” the South African said. “He’s really coming on, he’s dangerous, extremely quick, and I’m chuffed for him.”

Groom may not be nearly as quick as his younger teammate, but his experience and leadership are invaluable qualities, especially when the team are under pressure, as they were for much of the first half and some stretches of the second.

“We were sitting at half time going ‘Well, okay, we’re down but we saw some good signs’,” to get tired, particularly when it’s your first game in a long time,” the hooker said. “How we control how we’re playing is a big talking point in the changing room, how we can control the flow of the game better.

“We were disappointed with our discipline. We gave away too much ball at breakdown and we didn’t adapt quickly enough in the game. That just gave he said. “And I’m quite chuffed with how we stuck to it. We always thought we’d have a bit of an edge towards the end of the game – we’ve worked really at training and that came through for us. Great to win – first bit of silverware for us this year.

“I was happy with my temperament in the game. Building up to the game in training, during some of the practice games, I was getting a bit frustrated with the stop-start nature of things, and Glasgow definitely had a strategy to disrupt our kicking game.

“They put a lot of pressure on our base-kicking, there was a couple of scrags which the jury is still out on, but I just stuck to it and I was focused and took it as it came, so I’m happy with that part of my game.

“Generally, I’m very pleased. You can’t really re-enact match intensity and I thought I came out really well, so I’m happy.”

Edinburgh field position and we had to defend a lot – and for large parts we defended well.

“I felt we defended the breakdown well. Our attacking breakdown and how we look after the ball is something we need to improve. It’s about generally when to play in the right areas and getting into our attack shape as quickly as possible.”