Warriors put Bulls in place following a first-half blitz
GLASGOW 35 BULLS 21
A scintillating first-half performance saw Glasgow Warriors claim the bonus point with just over half an hour played and set up an impressive win over last season’s United Rugby Championship finalists.
This was the best possible response to last weekend’s poor performance and result away to the Ospreys. The big question now is whether Franco Smith’s team can take their home form on the road when they play two matches in South Africa against the sharks and the Lions during the next fortnight.
The home side did run out of steam in the final quarter but dug deep to defend heroically, which meant the scoreboard accurately reflected their onfield superiority.
Warriors raced into a seventhminute lead when they kicked a penalty to the corner then launched a series of close-range attacks, which culminated in Matt Fagerson bustling over.
George horne added the conversion and Warriors were straight back on the attack from the restart and scored their second just three minutes later.
This time, captain for the night Sione Tuipulotu and Fraser Brown combined to send Sebastian Cancelliere on a 30-yard dash to the line.
Bulls kept turning the screw but Warriors defended heroically, and their resilience was rewarded when Horne scored a brilliant solo to secure the bonus-point with 35 minutes played.
Jordan sweeping round and hitting the line hard put Warriors on the front foot near halfway and, unperturbed by his mishap the last time he tried to break from the base, Horne picked up and scampered through a gap.
He made it all way to 10 metres from the Bulls line before some desperate defence pulled him down, only for the livewire scrum-half to bounce straight back to his feet and hurl himself past two defenders for a try which got Scotstoun bouncing.
Warriors started the second half as they ended the first and another breathless passage of play led to try No. 5 when Sebastian Cancelliere was put into space on the right, stepped past the first defender and then sent Josh Mckay over with a brilliant one-handed offload.
Both sides were reduced to 14 men for 10 minutes when Horne and Louw found themselves in a David versus Goliath type tussle on the deck. No punches were thrown but it was pretty unsavoury and unnecessary, so Irish referee Andrew Brace sent the little Scottish scrum-half and the huge South African No. 8 for a spell in the cooler.
Replacement hooker Bismarck Du Plessis bustled in for Bulls’ second try on the hour mark, and Chris Smith once again added the conversion, which, theoretically at least, kept the contest alive
But Warriors kept the visitors at bay with one cover tackle by Cancelliere summing up the home team’s determination not to concede an inch to their opponents.
Cancelliere also came close to scoring when George Turner hacked a loose ball forward twice and the Argentinean flyer was first to the ball as it bobbled in the in-goal area, but referee Brace again referred it to the TMO who ruled that there had been an obstruction by Warriors replacement Sintu Manjezi at the start of that passage of play.
Finally, Janko Swanepoel scored a consolation try for the Bulls in the last minute.