Warriors keep their heads in Champions Cup bid
Townsend’s men celebrate victory over Leicester but see room for improvement. By Stuart Bathgate
IT was one of the great nights at Scotstoun: a 42-13 dismemberment of Leicester that got Glasgow Warriors’ Champions Cup campaign off to the best possible start. Friday’s victory showed Gregor Townsend’s side are again capable, as they were in their PRO12-winning season, of peaking for the big occasion.
All the same, it was easy to see why neither the head coach nor his players were willing to get carried away by the result. This is only one game of six in Pool One, and the Warriors will probably have to win another four to qualify for the quarter-finals for the first time.
Townsend eventually came out with the verdict “Obviously delighted”, but not until he had outlined a series of shortcomings that might have been exposed by more ruthless opponents. Similarly, Gor- don Reid, who could hardly have asked for a better way in which to mark his 100th appearance for the team, engaged in a spot of selfcriticism before accepting a degree of self-satisfaction was in order.
“There’s a lot of stuff we need to work on still, but to go away with a win like that is absolutely fantastic,” said the Scotland prop, who would have scored in the corner had he held a Henry Pyrgos pass with the line at his mercy.
Next up is Saturday’s trip to former European champions Munster, who Reid expects to be even tougher opponents in this tournament than they are in the league. “It’s a horrible place. We know them really well because of the PRO12, but it’s a different dog in Europe.”
And if they win in Limerick – as they are well capable of doing on this form – Glasgow then have
back-to-back games before Christmas against Racing 92, last season’s runners-up. In other words, there is a long way to go before those quarter-finals are in sight.
Still, the combination of virtues displayed against Leicester has to give Glasgow heart. Yes, they made errors, and yes, the one try they conceded came all too cheaply, but they hit back almost immediately after that score to put in their best spell of the game – an eight-minute stretch which yielded three tries. And they also tightened up in defence to get the better of a Tigers attack with limited imagination.
Leonardo Sarto claimed two tries in his best outing, and Mark Bennett, Fraser Brown and Henry Pyrgos got the rest, but Reid admitted he would have been happier at the end of the game had he also got on the scoresheet. Instead, after letting the ball slip, he punched the corner flag in frustration.
“I wish I could celebrate it a wee bit more with that try,” the forward added when congrat- ulated on his 100th appearance. “The corner flag will wake up tomorrow pretty sore.
“No, it was amazing to go out there. They’re a big team, forward-oriented. I thought we did pretty well. We knew they thought they were coming up here to give us a good battle in the scrum, have one over on us, but we knew what to expect.”
It might have been an even better result if the referee, Mathieu Raynal of France, had red-carded Leicester centre Matt Toomua for a highly dangerous tip-tackle on Finn Russell. Instead, the Wallabies international, on his Leicester debut, only got a yellow.
Russell managed to throw out an arm to ensure he landed on his shoulder first before his head made contact with the ground, and that was reason enough, according to some, for the incident to be deemed less serious. But the onus is on the tackler, not the tackled player, to ensure a safe landing.
Reid admitted he thought the Australian should have been off for good, but explained that the incident had worked in his own team’s favour.
“He was quite lucky to get a yellow card, but the referee’s there to make a decision, so we can only do what the referee says.
“It just shows you what kind of team we actually are – when one person goes down we’re all in. It’s all or nothing, kind of thing. Everybody’s got each other’s backs. They’re a physical team, so we just matched them physically.”
More than matched them, actually. Now more of the same will be needed against Munster.
I wish I could celebrate it a wee bit more with that try. The corner flag will wake up pretty sore