Glasgow gear up for Munster test with hard-fought victory
Conference table A in the Guinness Pro14 is already beginning to look like a twohorse race, thanks to a lastminute kick from Cardiff Blues stand-off Steven Shingler slipping the wrong side of the post.
That gifted Glasgow this win just after Munster won a few miles down the road in Swansea, so those two horses will face each other at Scotstoun on Friday aiming to protect their 100 per cent records and comfortable lead at the top.
Glasgow showed flashes of how they can challenge anyone this season, while Munster showed greater consistency in grinding out victory. It will be a clash of styles as well as a fierce forward encounter.
“We had a lot of good competition with Munster last year, three very physical and combative games. I don’t think there’s any love lost between the two sides after last year,” admitted Glasgow lock Tim Swinson.
“We are both teams who have eyes on being the best in our league and are both very demanding of ourselves and unfortunately there’s another team on the pitch who want to stop you doing that.
“That showed in our games last year, that we both really wanted to show that we could physically put ourselves on the pitch and they were very close, very exciting games to watch.”
When Glasgow were good
0 Glasgow back row Matt Fagerson tackles Cardiff’s Damian Welch during Saturday’s Guinness Pro14 clash at Cardiff Arms Park. against Cardiff, they were very, very good. When they were bad, well, they did not make the most of their territory and possession, to say the least. However, the Blues had lost their opening two games and were determined to register their first win, the weather was wet and drizzly, so simply winning this match should not be underestimated even if there needs to be more to come from Glasgow.
“We want to play at a pretty high tempo, we thought we could run Cardiff off their feet. We knew they had a lot of big men up front and they would be desperate tonight, so we wanted to operate off some really quick ball,” was the assessment from coach Dave Rennie, pictured right.
“But we were too inaccurate and kicked way too much ball away, especially in our own 22 with little dinky kicks behind which they dealt with really well.
“We made a number of line breaks and probably should have profited off those, but you have to give credit to Cardiff. They scrambled really well and it was an armwrestle to the end.
“Obviously we have to tidy up our setpiece next week. We have got to be far more clinical and clean out quicker ball, but we have defended pretty well over the last three weeks, which has been a big part of our success. We’ll get asked some serious questions next week by Munster. They won’t come with any surprises about how they are going to play. They will have their big men and a lot of line speed in defence, so we have six days to get a plan together of how we are going to deal with that.”
Glasgow’s first try was an example of how the pass beats the man every time, clinical distribution taking out each layer of the defence to give scrum-half Henry Pyrgos a clear run to the line. Their second try also showed a good eye for the opportunity, stand-off Finn Russell collecting a high kick and bursting into space before feeding wing Lee Jones for the score. Russell was also 100 per cent from the kicking tee. Shingler, too, landed every kick until his last one.
Munster will provide a sterner test, but Swinson believes Glasgow are improving quickly week by week.
“I think we stuck in,” he said. “Ithinkinthefirstthreeweeks of the season we haven’t shown what we’re capable of. Our two tries today were fantastic counter-attack by our backs and us really working as a team, but we haven’t shown that for any period of time – more than the odd flash here and there. I think once we get more periods of time together that will make us improve and take the next step into just playing better all-round rugby rather than in fits and starts like at the moment. We want to win with bonus points and great looking rugby, but we’ll take the win.”
The same would apply on Friday as well.