Glasgow hold off Edinburgh fightback to clinch derby win

ROOKIE stand-off Ross Thompson kicked 13 points in a man-of-thematch peformance on his first ever professional start as Glasgow held on to win an entertaining Scottish PRO14 derby at Scotstoun.

The 21-year-old who made his debut off the bench only two weeks ago, said: “I was pretty nervous to begin with, but having Ali (Price) at 9 alongside helped me during the game and I was pleased with how things went.

“The scrums and mauls gave us a really good platand and when the backs got the ball we used it pretty well. I think the team can use this result to really kick on now.”

Thompson settled his nerves with a penalty in the fourth minute with his pack dominating the early exchanges. He added another penalty ten minutes later before Edinburgh struck back with a penalty from Jaco van der Walt.

Glasgow hooker George Turner was yellow carded on 33 minutes after he dipped into Edinburgh lock Grant Gilchrist while the latter was trying to block a box-kick, with referee Mike Adamson deeming it a shoulder charge after checking with his TMO.

Edinburgh made their extra man count with fullback Blair Kinghorn feeding winger Jamie Farndale to go over in the right corner.

Van der Walt converted but a third Thompson penalty closed the gap to 10-9 at half-time.

A high tackle by No.8 Viliame Mata on Glasgow centre Robbie Fergusson was penalised early in the second period and gave the hosts good field position.

They worked through the phases and No.8 Matt Fagerson went over for a try. Thompson’s conversion made it 16-10.

A scything run by Glasgow full-back Huw Jones into the Edinburgh 22 then caused problems and Van der Walt was penalised – and sin-binned – for not rolling away once Jones had been hauled down.

Turner scored from the resultant lineout and driving maul a try, with Thompson adding the extras for 23-10.

The short-handed visitors knew they had to strike back soon and within two minutes centre Chris Dean touched down. Mark Bennett converted.

Replacement Pierre Schoeman thought he had scored for Edinburgh but was penalised for a double movement and, with six points in it and five minutes left, Huw Jones was yellow carded for going off his feet at the breakdown.

Edinburgh wing Eroni Sau managed to break through to score in the left corner but Van der Walt’s conversion sailed just wide and Glasgow clung on.