Capital men too strong but Glasgow can improve

EDINBURGH proved too strong for Glasgow and, to be fair, it was a much better game than I was expecting after five months off. There was rustiness as you would expect but the quality improved as the game went on, which is not normally the case in a pre-season match as this was. Normally, as fatigue kicks in, the skills start to wane and the intensity drops but Edinburgh, in particular, got stronger and better as the game progressed and ran out easy winners in the end. Not allowing Glasgow to score a single point in the second half will excite and disappoint the two coaches in equal amounts. Edinburgh boss Richard Cockerill was pleased with how his charges stayed in the fight and were able to pull away near the end. Danny Wilson, on the other hand, would have been quite happy with the first 40-minute performance but not with the second half when they ran out of ideas in attack with no real cutting edge. This can easily happen in the first game of the season, so nothing to really trouble Wilson in his first game in charge because the Warriors will find their attacking mojo very quickly. The man who brought the spark to Edinburgh’s strong finish was Duhan van der Merwe. His electrifying break to set up Nic Groom for his second try was off-the-scale good but would not be taught in any coaching manual. He ran with the ball in one hand like it was a tennis ball, using the other hand to hold off would-be defenders before popping the ball to Groom to score. It was more Fijian than South African. You could almost hear national coach Gregor Townsend cheer when Van der Merwe did this, knowing that he has just qualified to play for Scotland on residency. So, job done for Edinburgh, some good stuff for Glasgow to build on and professional rugby back in Scotland, which was the big result on Saturday.