JUST GRIM FOR GREGOR
Edinburgh edge one of the worst derbies in history as Scots hopefuls fail audition in front of national coach
WITH Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend in the stands and the Six Nations just round the corner, you’d think both sets of players would rise to the occasion to impress the national boss.
Instead, a fixture that has traditionally been looked on as a Scotland trial saw all of the international contenders fail the audition.
In one of the most dire derbies in rugby history, not a single point had been scored until 65 minutes when Edinburgh’s Jaco van der Walt put over a penalty.
Neither side showed any attacking bite, which was a sin considering the talent both teams had in their back divisions. Up front, both packs huffed and puffed but made little impression on one another.
It was no surprise that the match was decided by mistakes, with Glasgow fly-half Brandon Thomson the main culprit.
He missed a simple penalty to put his side ahead and was at fault again in the build -up to Edinburgh’s match-clinching try. His wild pass went over the head of centre Sam Johnson, which allowed Van der
Walt to kick ahead. In the race that followed, Magnus Bradbury outsprinted everybody to score.
Glasgow went over for a try through replacement Lewis Bean with two minutes left but it was too little, too late for the visitors, who didn’t contribute much at all.
Edinburgh centre Mark Bennett, who played a crucial part in his side’s win with some vital tackles, believes his side deserved the derby-day victory.
‘It was nil-nil with more than an hour played, but we won and it felt like a deserved win from my point of view,’ said Bennett. ‘Playing without fans, though, is just strange, there is no other way to describe it. I can’t wait until we get them back.’
His head coach Richard Cockerill, though, was pleased with some aspects of his side’s performance.
‘There were parts we can improve on but it is about winning and that is what we did,’ he said.
‘It was a bit turgid at times but I thought the boys were brave to keep going for the corners and taking the scrums. I felt we did not get the reward that we deserved by doing that.
‘In saying that, I thought we were positive with the ball, positive with our mindset and, if you are positive and keep having a crack, then you end up with a win like we did.’
Cockerill believes the Heineken Champions Cup triumph over Sale Sharks away and now the derby win over Glasgow has put his side on the right track after a poor start to the season.
‘Winning is a good habit,’ he said. ‘We won at Sale and won again against Glasgow, so that is two good sides we have beaten. We will come in on Monday and look at things as there is a lot for us to look at as we can play a lot, lot better.
‘Across the board, our two front rows were good. Ben Toolis had not trained all week and turned up and played a full 80 minutes in the second row. I am pleased with the result and it is all about picking up four points.’
Cockerill put the poor quality of rugby down to the conditions and, at one stage, he feared the match may even end i n an embarrassing 0-0 draw.
‘I was saying up in the coaches box, “when was the last time there was a 0-0 draw”, as it looked to be heading that way,’ he added.
‘As I said, it was a little bit turgid out there. The conditions were good to begin with but it was wet and greasy on the field and that affected both sides.
‘These games are for winning and that is the most important thing.’
The first half was a real scrappy affair, with Edinburgh dominating most of it. For the first 10 minutes both sides were tentative in their approach until the hosts took the upper hand.
They enjoyed plenty of possession and territory and won all the early scrums. They kept kicking to the corner rather than taking penalty attempts, with only some superb defending by Glasgow on their own line keeping them out. Things started to get desperate for the visitors as they started to bring down the scrum to the extent referee Sam GroveWhite warned them a yellow card was coming to the next manwho did it again. They quickly cleaned up their act but the pressure kept on coming from Edinburgh. Warriors full-back Huw Jones (left) didn’t help when his clearance from outside his 22 went into touch, which put more pressure on his side as play was pulled back. It took 26 minutes for Glasgow to mount their first attack but it was stopped in its tracks when Bennett timed his tackle superbly on Nick Grigg, who knocked on.
Thomson’s dreadful time with the boot continued when he missed the simple penalty from just in front of the posts.
It followed a similar miss that would have won Glasgow the game in the last minute against Dragons the last time his team played a Pro14 fixture at Scotstoun.
Even though Warriors had passed up a chance to take the lead, it didn’t affect them too much as they hauled themselves back into the match as both sides went in at the break.
Indeed, Glasgow started the second half brighter.
A quick tap penalty saw Zander Fagerson nearly bundle over the line but he knocked the ball on.
The first changes came in 55 minutes when Edinburgh took off Pierre Schoeman and WP Nel and replaced them with Rory Sutherland and Simon Berghan.
However, it made no difference as play continued to get bogged down in the middle of the park with the action breaking down time and time again.
It took 65 minutes before the first points were scored.
It came after a Glasgow offence at the ruck that set up fly-half Van der Walt to slot the ball between the posts.
With 12 minutes left, Edinburgh stretched their lead after mistakes in the Warriors defence.
A slack pass from Thomson was just too high for Johnson and the loose ball was kicked ahead by Van der Walt.
Such is the pace of Bradbury, he sprinted ahead of his fly-half and the despairing Glasgow defence to go over for a try. Van der Walt kicked the extras.
With two minutes left, Glasgow went over for a consolation try after some good work by their forwards.
They kept their composure well before replacement Bean dived over the line. Ross Thompson put
over the extras to finish the scoring in what had been a real turgid affair.
Warriors head coach Danny Wilson is relishing the return match against Edinburgh at Scotstoun next Friday as he didn’t think there was much between the sides.
‘Having a derby at home is great,’ said Wilson. ‘More important for us is that we need a run of games with the same group of players and then we can build and build and build before they go away again on Scotland duty.
‘Tight games come down to tight situations and we came out on the wrong side of a couple of those situations, including again a lack of discipline. Soft penalties led to us being camped in the wrong areas of the pitch.’
Hopefully, the standard from both of these sides improves in the next match at Scotstoun for the good of Scottish rugby.