Warriors back with a bang
Hogg hails Glasgow for exorcising title agony
GLASGOW WARRIORS exorcised a few demons at the Sportsground last night as they got their Guinness Pro12 campaign off to a winning start against the champions.
Three months ago, Gregor Townsend’s side left Galway with their dreams of back-to-back Pro12 titles in tatters following their loss in the semi-final. Last night, they were devastatingly ruthless as his side ran in six tries on the way to a stunning bonus-point victory.
Two tries from Tommy Seymour and one each from Stuart Hogg, Tim Swinson, Sila Puafisi and Sean Lamont gave Townsend’s side a deserved win in their first game of the season. How different it was three months on for Hogg, who was one of the most distraught players after that defeat.
‘We were fairly disappointed with how it ended last season, so we wanted to come across here and put down a marker and I think we very much did that,’ said a jubilant Hogg. ‘We were gutted with that. We’ve drawn a line under it.
‘It was a lot of hard work. We’ve had a very good pre-season. The boys have enjoyed it. We have a lot of running under our belt and we’re just excited to be back. You can see in the way we played there, we express ourselves and we had some fun.’
A torrential downpour just before kick-off did little to help either side’s hopes of a low error count, but it was the home side who appeared to suffer the most with their quick offloading game. But they were also unable to attain a perfect return from their lineout, which cost them some crucial yards when playing into the strong wind in the first half.
But at the scrum there was no doubt that Connacht held the upperhand early on. Twice in the first quarter they forced Glasgow to lose possession from their own put-in, but that was the only area of the game which the home side dominated.
Warriors were well on top at the breakdown and two standout turnovers from Swinson and Jonny Gray put the visitors on the front foot.
In their typical style, Connacht tried to run everything from deep and, on a couple of occasions, Niyi Adeolokun almost broke clear down the right, but either Glasgow made the cover tackle or individual errors caught up with the home side.
And all their good work in defence — Glasgow were very quick off the line — paid off after 11 minutes when Warriors took the lead. From an attacking lineout on the right side, they elected to maul and they soon made positive yards. Leonardo Sarto was eventually held up by the Connacht defence, but they had committed too many men in repelling that move, and once the ball was swung to the left, Hogg sent Seymour over in the corner.
But there was to be a way back into the tie for Pat Lam’s side and it came from a rash tackle by Ryan Wilson that saw him earn a yellow card after 28 minutes. He was very low and very late on Jack Carty and could well have been handed a red.
And with a one-man advantage, the home side began to turn the screw. From the initial penalty, Adeolokun failed to get on the end of Carty’s grubber kick on the right-hand side, but four minutes later the champions struck.
It came as no surprise that Bundee Aki was at the heart of the move, and his powerful leg drive forced five Warriors defenders to zone in on the New Zealander. When the ball was whipped from left to right through the hands of Caolin Blade, Finlay Bealham and Eoin Griffin, Adeolokun was on hand to score in the corner — although Henry Pyrgos came close to tackling him into touch.
There was no successful conversion from the touchline for Carty as Glasgow led by 8-5, but that lead was soon stretched by Townsend’s side.
Considering that their scrum was taking such a battering, they held solid with seven men and Rob Harley did well to take possession on halfway.
And after the play moved from right to left through a couple of phases, Hogg again linked with Seymour, who stepped back in off the right against the drift defence to score his second try, moments before his side were restored to their full complement.
It was a ruthless opening half from Glasgow and they deserved their 13-5 interval lead — and they kept the pressure on from the restart. And six minutes of incessant pressure finally told with Warriors’ third try.
Sarto was held up over the try-line, which resulted in a five-metre scrum. Crucially, this time the scrum was rock-solid from Glasgow and the quick ball launched the attack, with Hogg on hand to stretch over the line.
Pyrgos’ conversion made it 20-5 for Warriors as they set out in search of a bonus-point try.
And it came in the 53rd minute following a blistering counter-attack after Ultan Dillane knocked on in attack. Eventually Pyrgos almost scored, but Swinson was on hand to pick up and touch down from a few inches.
A few months on from his sending off at the same venue, Puafisi crashed over just before the hour mark. But it was ruthless from Warriors as Sean Lamont rounded off the rout nine minutes from time.