What do you think?
Ali Price when he finally re-emerged from the sanctuary of the Scotstoun dressing room.
The English-born, Scottish international scrum-half has been in Scotland for five years since moving back to his mother’s homeland from the relative balminess of England’s south-east so has had some ugly days and nights to contend with at Scotstoun down the years, but Saturday’s hail and sleet were more debilitating than anything previous.
“That’s probably the coldest I’ve ever played in. It was a very stop-start game, especially for the outside backs. Our wingers were definitely feeling it. Then, when you get a touch and you’re cold, it isn’t ideal when you’re having to go into contact.”
In that context, then, there
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“There were a few errors but we came away with four points in those conditions,” added Price. “As we said in the changing room, we’d rather be freezing and have won than be on the other end of the result.”
It was an afternoon on which their opponents made a mockery of pundits’ pre-match suggestions that they would fail to respect the tournament and would merely go through the motions, having already been knocked out, their powerful set-piece play in particular causing problems throughout and Glasgow ultimately had cause to be grateful for the way they managed to perform before the cold started seeping into their bones.
“We obviously came out the blocks flying,” Price said, referring to the try registered just 44 seconds into proceedings after his half-back partner Adam Hastings made a blistering break, before Stuart Hogg’s delicately weighted grubber put Niko Matawalu in behind the defence.
The Fijian also claimed the second, the same trio combining after Hogg picked the right angle to take Hastings’ inside pass, then linked with Matawalu as he came in off his wing to apply the finish.
Hastings had also kicked two penalties by then, making it an 18-0 advantage, a four-try bonus point at that point, but to their credit Lyon’s pride kicked in and they were the better side thereafter, albeit never properly worrying their hosts.
Glasgow were confined to just one more score – a second-half Hastings penalty – their defence also answered most of the questions asked of it on a day when the biggest disappointment was the loss to injury of George Turner, just days after fellow international hooker Fraser Brown underwent the surgeon’s knife.