Warriors find their missing mental vigour
GLASGOW coach Gregor Townsend was a happier man on Friday night after watching his side bounce back from their 1872 Cup defeat with a 22-7 win over the Scarlets, but there was more to please him than just the result.
Last week, Townsend sat his players down and reminded them of what had made Glasgow the form team of the Guinness Pro12 before they encountered Toulouse in the European Champions Cup.
Those back-to-back games knocked Warriors sideways and it showed in the 1872 Cup games with Edinburgh.
They beat Munster and edged the first leg against their Scottish rivals after that numbing fortnight but, while happy with such results, performances left Townsend trophy-less and rubbing new worry lines in his forehead.
What had happened to the attacking elan that had yielded 21 tries in their first five games?
Publicly, it was the result of facing superior defences to those of earlier on, he said. Up to a point.
Another answer lay in the players’ mindset. Sure, the technique let the players down but, after driving to the top of the Pro12, the consistency of application dropped off.
A chief cause was the Autumn Tests and the fact that Glasgow supplied a great majority of Vern Cotter’s Scotland team. There was a core — from Euan Murray, Jonny Gray and Rob Harley in the pack, to the new controller Finn Russell and back-line dynamos Alex Dunbar, Mark Bennett, Tommy Seymour and Stuart Hogg — that suffered after a run of top-level games.
Townsend did his best to mitigate against that by switching players to keep them fresh, but then came a second wave: Toulouse. The astute French coach Guy Noves used his experienced forwards to slow Glasgow at every turn and flex their muscle in a seismic arm-wrestle, and his team stayed calm when under pressure to repel the Scots.
That impregnable response was relatively new to Warriors this season and, when it was repeated at Scotstoun, players took on the puzzled look of a newcomer to the Rubik’s Cube.
The team sought to find a way out by sticking to the simple things: carry ball, pass safely and play in the right areas of the field.
The common mantra of ‘don’t take unnecessary risks’ in their heads became ‘don’t take risks’ — and that was not the approach that had carried Glasgow to the top of the Pro12.
The route back always lay in the brain rather than brawn. We saw the start of that against the Scarlets and, more, the ability to shrug off an error that cost a try and respond aggressively with attack that restored the inevitability of tries.
Not able to influence brains, significantly, the coaches must focus on technique, but Friday’s mental performance was timely with the final two rounds of European rugby to come, into which Glasgow have now learned they must step boldly and avoid conservatism.