Warriors in as Barker takes gold
Rennie raps Glasgow but will be ready for Scarlets if they meet in semi-final
GLASGOW will surely still secure a home Guinness Pro14 semi-final, but Dave Rennie hit out at his side’s ‘horrific’ performance in Llanelli as they were completely outfought by the Scarlets.
Finn Russell was hooked at halftime after a shocking first period as Warriors were comfortably second best in the scrum contest, made a series of basic mistakes and saw star men Stuart Hogg, Russell and his half-back partner Ali Price all have days to forget at the home of the defending champions.
Simply put, Glasgow were all over the place as tries in either half from Rhys Patchell, a crucial Gareth Davies effort and 11 points from the boot of Leigh Halfpenny gave Scarlets a fully-deserved success.
Warriors may yet face Scarlets in the Pro14’s last four, but here the Champions Cup semi-finalists showed Rennie’s men how to play. Injuries to Ryan Wilson and Oliver Kebble were also a big blow as Glasgow’s points came courtesy of a Henry Pyrgos try and Peter Horne penalty.
Rennie said: ‘We were disappointing. We were really conservative and kicked a lot of ball away. The second half was better, but there were too many handling errors. When we had Scarlets under pressure, we released it and their set-piece functioned well which gave them field position.
‘It was a pretty flat performance. We had a few international boys coming back in after a couple of weeks out, but we weren’t as sharp as we needed to be. The amount of turnovers was horrific.
‘We kicked out on the full and kicked aimlessly. We’re keen to kick a bit more, but went a couple of phases and tried to pull rabbits out of the hat. We need to be more patient.’
With his team already 12 points clear at the top of Conference A ahead of this fixture, Glasgow head coach Rennie had the luxury of recalling six Scotland internationals.
Star man and full-back Hogg returned to action following the Six Nations, while Price and Racing Metro-bound Russell teamed up as the half-back pairing.
Scarlets named a strong side of their own including Scotland skipper John Barclay and the hosts started with their usual expansive style, spreading the ball from side to side. Glasgow weren’t helped by hooker George Turner being forced off early on for a head injury assessment and Russell missed with two early penalty efforts.
The Scotland fly-half can be frustratingly languid at times and he hooked the game’s first chance of points before striking the post with an altogether more simple kick from right in front of the posts.
Russell’s misses were costly as Warriors struggled to get any platform on which to attack and
George Clancy adjudged DTH Van der Merwe to have knocked on during a rare Scottish breakaway.
Halfpenny then followed Russell in seeing a kick rebound off the post.
But it didn’t matter as Scarlets then moved ahead, Patchell wriggling his way to the line after bouncing off three poor Glasgow tacklers to score a try Rennie would have been disappointed to see his team concede.
Halfpenny was again awry with the extras attempt but nailed a 34th-minute penalty as Warriors went into the break 8-0 down.
Rennie removed Russell from the fray for the second period, replacing him with Horne who immediately succeeded where his predecessor had failed by landing a penalty.
Rennie confirmed afterwards the decision to replace Russell was tactical and not injury-enforced.
Scarlets then lost Wales centre Hadleigh Parkes to a knee injury, but Horne then twice kicked the ball straight out to sum up the scrappy nature of the contest.
Scarlets, nonetheless, remained on top at scrum time and their pack won them another penalty which Halfpenny kicked with ease. It soon got worse for Glasgow.
Price’s wild pass was intercepted by scrum-half rival Davies who raced 60 metres to score in the corner. It was an almost exact replica of Wales’ opening try against Scotland in the Six Nations when Davies also picked off a Price ball to make it to the line.
Halfpenny failed to convert but kicked a penalty and the scoring burst into life — with Price’s replacement Pyrgos diving over and Horne missing the conversion.
That was as good as it got for Glasgow as Wilson was forced off and saw his team get exactly what they deserved: precisely nothing.
Using their scrum as a weapon, lovely hands from Ioan Nicholas and James Davies sent Patchell over for his second try and Halfpenny converted the final kick of the game.
Asked about a potential semi-final reunion with the Scarlets, Rennie said: ‘We’ll look forward to that.
‘We have a good scrum, but it didn’t function as well as it needed to.
‘They were sharp and we’ll have to be better. Ryan has a problem with his ribs. With Olly it’s his ankle.’