Relief for Danny after Cup confusion
Glasgow coach Danny Wilson was relieved to see his team hold out for their 23-22 victory over Edinburgh last night after they had needlessly kept the game alive,
writes STUART BATHGATE.
Thinking that they needed another score to win the 1872 Cup on points difference, the Warriors attacked in stoppage time and could have let their opponents – who won the first game in the series 10-7 – back into the game. In fact there will, as usual, be a third meeting to decide the trophy.
“A few weeks ago it was mentioned this game could be played over two legs – Ryan Wilson got wind of that,” Wilson said.
“I took it for granted that everyone still knew it was over three legs, so I’m looking at it thinking: ‘what are we doing?’.
“So there were a few frightening moments there towards the end.
“I thought we played well and were pretty dominant. But we still gave Edinburgh some opportunities.”
The visitors could have snatched the match at Scotstoun if Jaco van der Walt had been on target with a late conversion attempt, but their head coach Richard Cockerill said he did not hold the stand-off responsible for the defeat.
“If Jaco kicks the conversion, are we a better team than when he didn’t?
“There’s no responsibility on
Jaco for missing that. When we scored our first try, we didn’t control the game well enough.
“There were a couple of mad minutes before half-time where we kicked the ball out for no reason.
“We didn’t do the simple things well and we got punished for it. We’ve only got ourselves to blame.”
Asked about those “mad minutes” when scrum-half Nic Groom heard a train’s hooter, thought it meant half-time and kicked the ball out, leading to a Glasgow score, Cockerill summoned up a diplomatic reply.
“It was not one of the favourite moments of my coaching career, I can tell you,” he said.