Warriors pair turn on style to dazzle Italians
GEORGE HORNE and Finn Russell sparkled as Glasgow Warriors came through their latest foreign trip with a comfortable bonus-point win in Parma that cements their place at the top of Conference A in the Guinness Pro14.
Neither half-back produced a perfect performance, but it was their creativity that made the difference against a gutsy Zebre.
Horne scored one try and created another in the first half, while Russell set up both moves for touchdowns after the interval.
As Warriors head coach Dave Rennie acknowledged afterwards, the comforting factor from his point of view is knowing that he has options going into the period when he will be missing players due to international call-ups.
‘George Horne has been very good and is putting a lot of pressure on the established nines,’ said Rennie.
‘Nick Grigg again gave us a lot going forward. He is a pocket battleship and hard to contain, a real handful.
‘It was good to see guys like Nick stepping up and also Adam Ashe, who — with Chris Fusaro unfortunately getting knocked out — got a lot of action today. It was good for him to get 60 minutes under his belt.’
Rennie acknowledged it was far from an error-free performance by Warriors, but he has no intention of easing off on the high-tempo attacking style that demands so much from the players’ skills.
‘We could play like some of the other sides, just drive and box kick, and we won’t make any mistakes,’ he said. ‘But to win this competition, you are going to have to play.
‘A couple of individuals maybe had poor days with the hands — but when we go through the tape, I think we’ll find we did not turn over anywhere near the amount of ball that we did a couple of weeks ago.
‘We won’t go into our shell. You want the perfect game, but we are trying to play at a tempo that stresses
teams and that is why we are scoring tries. It is not going to be perfect even though we are striving for that.’
Glasgow were not helped by the conditions. Forget the stereotype of playing in ‘sunny’ Italy. This match took place on a dreich, damp afternoon in Parma, conditions most people would associate with Scotland. It should have suited the visitors.
Zebre, who lost both legs of their festive derbies to Benetton Treviso, had won only three matches all season, one of them against the hapless South Africans Southern Kings.
But they have been looking a much better side under former Edinburgh coach Michael Bradley than the shambles of last season. And they demonstrated that improvement with a dangerous attack in the opening minutes yesterday.
The Glasgow line held firm, though, and the counter-attack launched by Ruaridh Jackson took them deep into the Zebre half where they won a penalty. They kicked to the corner and drove the resulting maul to the line for Matt Fagerson to touch down.
The Italians were quick to respond, turning the ball over in the Glasgow 22, changing direction a couple of times before finding space on the left. Full-back Edoardo Padovani made the break and No 8 Renato Giammarioli finished off the move with the try.
Glasgow responded in style with three touchdowns in the second quarter that put the game to bed. Huw Jones set up the first with a clever chip that forced Zebre to carry over their line for a scrum five. Horne then played the perfect pass to give Lee Jones a simple canter to the line.
The forwards came up with their second driving maul, this one brought down illegally for a penalty try, before Horne secured the bonus point with a fourth score.
The second half was poorer fare. Zebre collected two tries. Flanker Maxime Mbanda grabbed the first and hooker Tommaso D’Apice the second as the Italians started to dream of maybe a couple of bonus points, if not a win.
Russell had other ideas, and his pass put Jackson into space. The full-back might have scored himself but unselfishly handed the ball on to Lee Jones to make certain of the score.
Then Russell came up with a delicate chip for Huw Jones. He won the ball and tapped down to Grigg and the centre had a simple run in for the try.