Glasgow Warriors v Leinster Rugby, 6 September

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Glasgow Warriors v Leinster Rugby

Saturday 6 September 2014, KO 17:15
Scotstoun Stadium, Glasgow

Live on Sky Sports
Referee: Nigel Owens (WRU, 112th competition game)
Assistant Referees: Neil Paterson, Bob Nevins (both SRU)
Citing Commissioner: Paul Minto (SRU)
TMO: Jim Yuille (SRU)

A. Teams:

I. Glasgow

15. Peter Murchie
14. Tommy Seymour
13. Mark Bennett
12. Alex Dunbar
11. Lee Jones
10. Peter Horne
09. Henry Pyrgos

01. Alex Allan
02. Fraser Brown
03. Euan Murray
04. Leone Nakarawa
05. Jonny Gray
06. Rob Harley
07. Chris Fusaro
08. Josh Strauss (Captain)

16. Pat MacArthur
17. Gordon Reid
18. Rossouw de Klerk
19. Tim Swinson
20. Adam Ashe
21. Niko Matawalu
22. Stuart Hogg
23. Sean Lamont

II. Leinster

15. Zane Kirchner
14. Fergus McFadden
13. Brendan Macken
12. Noel Reid
11. Darragh Fanning
10. Jimmy Gopperth
09. Isaac Boss

01. Cian Healy
02. Sean Cronin
03. Mike Ross
04. Ben Marshall
05. Mike McCarthy
06. Dominic Ryan
07. Shane Jennings
08. Sean O'Brien CAPTAIN

16. Bryan Byrne
17. Jack McGrath
18. Tadhg Furlong
19. Tom Denton
20. Kevin McLaughlin
21. Luke McGrath
22. Ian Madigan
23. Mick McGrath

B. Form - head to head:

35 Played 35
9 Wins 25
25 Losses 9
1 Draws 1
65 Tries 95
42 Conversions 67
68 Penalties 93
3 Drop Goals 1
622 Points 891
25 Avg. Age 28

C. Form - last season:
31/5/14: Leinster Rugby 34 - 12 Glasgow Warriors

1/3/14: Leinster Rugby 28 - 25 Glasgow Warriors

20/9/13: Glasgow Warriors 12 - 6 Leinster Rugby

Wonder if our lack of a proper recognized goal kicker will come back to haunt us?

I look away for ten minutes, TEN MINUTES and I come back to this...

5 minutes to win it...

Have to go for the points here. Tense finish

Or not.........

Now thats a ballsy/interesting call

Leinster infringe too much for my liking.

We DIDN'T go for goal????? WTF?

Notch wrote:Now thats a ballsy/interesting call

We both know the word you want is 'stupid'...

Niko doesn't want to win

Christ on a bike, Niko looked as if he wanted to tap it there. Take the points!

Oh my God that was hilarious, Glasgows forwards practically wanted to tackle Matawalu to the ground just then

What was Niko thinking there????  Glasgow so lucky he wasnt at the mark.

The whites could have been penalised several times in that passage of play, they're lucky to not concede more than 3 points. Glasgow lucky to come away with the win after doing their best to lose it.

Great call Nigel Owens! Great officiating in this game, such a contrast to this morning! Can we please have him lead the IRB's ref programme!!!

matuwalu what are you thinking, you nearly lost that game single handedly!

Hoggy furra posts!

Got away with it Glasgow! Got away with it...

It was a famous Glaswegian that coined the phrase 'squeaky-bum time' and I think Townsend was experiencing that at the end!

2 brutal offside offences from mcfadden inside 5 mins...

Never in doubt...

I'll take the lbp.

Well played Glasgow,fully deserved the win even if you went about getting it in a fairly unique way.Not that unhappy with a losing bonus point but not encouraged by the performance.MoC has said he's putting more emphasis on attack this year so I hope we start to see it take shape.

Just a second whilst I frame this:

[th]Pos[/th][th][/th][th]Team[/th][th][/th][th]P[/th][th]W[/th][th]D[/th][th]L[/th][th]PF[/th][th]PA[/th][th]Diff[/th][th]TF[/th][th]TA[/th][th]TB[/th][th]LB[/th][th]Pts[/th]

1			Ospreys	1	1	0	0	44	13	31	5	1	1	0	5
2			Connacht Rugby	1	1	0	0	16	11	5	2	1	0	0	4
3			Glasgow Warriors	1	1	0	0	22	20	2	3	2	0	0	4
4			Edinburgh Rugby	1	1	0	0	14	13	1	1	2	0	0	4
5			Scarlets	1	0	1	0	32	32	0	4	4	1	0	3
6			Ulster Rugby	1	0	1	0	32	32	0	4	4	1	0	3
7			Munster Rugby	1	0	0	1	13	14	-1	2	1	0	1	1
8			Leinster Rugby	1	0	0	1	20	22	-2	2	3	0	1	1
9			Newport Gwent Dragons	1	0	0	1	11	16	-5	1	2	0	1	1
10			Cardiff Blues	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
11			Zebre	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
12			Benetton Treviso	1	0	0	1	13	44	-31	1	5	0	0	0

If we just stopped the season right there, that would be a very interesting set of playoffs.

Evening all.
So let's do the negatives first;
Opponents now seem to have worked out that if you wind Niko up he goes all Mike Phillips in Macciedees. He was an utter liability today.
After Dunbar went off vanished from view. Neither Hogg nor Schlong could find him, actually if Toonie had been sitting on Schlong's back yelling "Pass, left, now!!" through a megaphone Schlong still wouldn't have found him.
Hogg's also a world class no 10....yes and Tony Blair is Humanitarian of the Year.

Positives;
Dunbar and are becoming the most exciting centre pairing in the Pro 12.
FurraLinee was superb.
The pack were mean and nasty and handled like basketball players. Though Naka tends to go into contact in far too upright a position.
Henners had one of his better games until the lack of options outside him made him try to take too much on himself. No worries thought Toonie, we've got Niko the magician to bring on.
Glasgow showed real character by winning that one, which is a massive positive.

I've had a quick check and I don't think I've praised any players who weren't actually playing. But then again I haven't spent any time with Schiz or the Brumeister today.

Did anyone else listen to the game on the radio? BBC radio Scotland actually cut to the news after Leinster scored their try to take the lead....and didn't broadcast dramatic moments of the rest of the game!

Unbelievable.

jimbopip wrote:Evening all.

Hogg's also a world class no 10....yes and Tony Blair is Humanitarian of the Year.

Blair is actually Philanthropist of the year... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11071780/Tony-Blair-philanthropist-of-year-GQ-award-sparks-Twitter-backlash.html

RDW_Scotland wrote:Did anyone else listen to the game on the radio? BBC radio Scotland actually cut to the news after Leinster scored their try to take the lead....and didn't broadcast dramatic moments of the rest of the game!

Unbelievable.

Thankfully I was listening to their coverage online so it didn't cut out. But that is shocking, what rugby hating eejit made that decision I wonder!?

How was SOB?

While it was nice to get the win it should have been a BPW. Lack of bonus points cost us last year, and I would prefer we didn't repeat that.

Thought Leinster were shocking but it's early days yet . Glasgow should never have been in the position they were in for the last 5 minutes they were comfortably the best team by some distance. A losing bonus point would be a good result for Leinster. It's a bit of a worry how blunt their attack has looked for some time now and I'm not sure where the answer is going to come from to be honest but early days. Another gripping game what a great start to the season we're having.

Agreed - the Irish papers correctly made the points that the most worrying things were (a) the mauling the Leinster pack took in the tight and (b) the ease with which Glasgow defended their midfield.

Both Ulster and Connacht looked to have more midfield firepower this weekend.

Well amigos, having allowed the emotional rollercoaster of yesterday to come to a gradual stop there's something I feel needs saying.
Last season we started off playing keech but scraping wins. So far in three matches we have had spells of attacking flair and sublime skills BUT spells where the opposition got back into the game and scored all too easily. At the moment it's rather like watching Brazil 1970 : you can score three - we'll score four. So do we get all Private Fraser about it or sit back and enjoy the thrills while they last?

Also, if Meatball's coat is on an increasingly shoogly peg, WTF is Niko's on?

George Carlin wrote:Agreed - the Irish papers correctly made the points that the most worrying things were (a) the mauling the Leinster pack took in the tight and (b) the ease with which Glasgow defended their midfield.

Both Ulster and Connacht looked to have more midfield firepower this weekend.

Yeah, but a season is a season, and a year is a year, and last time (last competitive game from either side - so only one game ago in theory), in a game that really mattered, the score was Leinster 34 - Glasgow 12.

So I think it's much too early to be consigning Leinster's competitiveness for the entire season down to a reading of how they functioned in the first game of the season - afterall that scoreline of the weekend is Leinster playing badly away from home to one of the very top Pro12 sides.  22-20 ain't all that bad under those circumstances!

SecretFly wrote:

George Carlin wrote:Agreed - the Irish papers correctly made the points that the most worrying things were (a) the mauling the Leinster pack took in the tight and (b) the ease with which Glasgow defended their midfield.

Both Ulster and Connacht looked to have more midfield firepower this weekend.

Yeah, but a season is a season, and a year is a year, and last time (last competitive game from either side - so only one game ago in theory), in a game that really mattered, the score was Leinster 34 - Glasgow 12.

So I think it's much too early to be consigning Leinster's competitiveness for the entire season down to a reading of how they functioned in the first game of the season - afterall that scoreline of the weekend is Leinster playing badly away from home to one of the very top Pro12 sides.  22-20 ain't all that bad under those circumstances!

Steady on, Fly. You're in danger of saying that Leinster won morally, which would be incredibly Welsh of you.

Nobody is writing Leinster's season off. Sadly, the bloody ladyboys will in the mix come the playoffs and unless we get that particular monkey off our backs, we're going to come up short again.

That's only the second time Glasgow has beaten Leinster in the past 11 attempts, so you'll forgive us for being a bit pleased with the result.

Oh by all means be pleased, George. Not my point at all to denigrate the win. Afterall, I'd say Glasgow has more reasons to be pleased than simply winning a game against Leinster (good or bad) These last few years Glasgow have proven to be one slick and very dangerous outfit on their own terms - regardless of who they face.

But I just kinda do secretly laugh a little every season when people go 'OOH AHH' or 'FU(see)K ME!!!' after one first game of a long season. We're all too long in the tooth to be dragged in by those various 'disbelieving' gasps of pain or delight but inevitably it seems the 'kick-start' mood to a new season always makes us fall for them.

Oh the excirahness of irh all!!!!

That was really 2 points dropped by Glasgow - one by not getting a try bonus point after getting 3 tries in the first half and two by letting Leinster back in for a LBP (and almost a win). I'd say Townsend went ballistic with his team after that second half non-performance after being so good in the first half. On the league table Glasgow should have 5 pts (not 4) and Leinster should be on 0 pts not 1.

Even by Leinster's slow starter standards that was a shocking performance and the way we were hammered in scrum and breakdown is seriously worrying. Behind the scrum, I'm beginning to sound like a broken record now but Boss is now so slow and so far off the quality needed for a SH it's beyond a joke. Gopperth is nothing more than a workhorse at 10 and in the centre Madigan and Macken don't look the part. Kirchner (apart from a bad missed tackle for the first Glasgow try) had a good game. The lack of creativity in the back line is a big worry and the only truly creative three-quarter we have is the injury prone Luke Fitz. If only that Olding lad wasn't a nordie - take him in a flash.

The glass half-full people will say ah it's just the first game in what will be a long season, but sorry I'm not convinced and I don't hold any huge hopes for the season - a play-off place in the Pro12 should be achievable but in Europe if we come up against one of the English or French big guns we will have serious problems.

It is strange to see Leinster struggling for creativity in the backs - not that long ago they were one of the most lethal attacking backlines in Europe, often scoring from first phase moves.

I only saw one replay but I thought Owens got the call on Matawalu completely wrong. He said it was only a penalty because he didn't connect with the swinging forearm. But I'm pretty sure he smashed his elbow into the back of Dom Ryans neck immediately beforehand. Or am I blinder than I thought?

Submachine wrote:I only saw one replay but I thought Owens got the call on Matawalu completely wrong. He said it was only a penalty because he didn't connect with the swinging forearm. But I'm pretty sure he smashed his elbow into the back of Dom Ryans neck immediately beforehand. Or am I blinder than I thought?

Forgot to comment on Matawalu in my last post. The lad is a yellow card waiting to happen and for all his undoubted creativity unless he sorts out his discipline he's going to give away as many points as he's going to score for Glasgow.

The rot under O'Connor continues I'm afraid, for a decade the finest attacking side in the NH are resigned to scoring from rolling mauls and lineout overthrows - gawd help us that was grim.

Glasgow look the team to beat in the pro12. The only positive for Leinster is their ability to hang in there in games - hard to believe the score was so close..

RDW_Scotland wrote:It is strange to see Leinster struggling for creativity in the backs - not that long ago they were one of the most lethal attacking backlines in Europe, often scoring from first phase moves.

I've got a name for the condition...it's called O'Connoritis

SecretFly wrote:

RDW_Scotland wrote:It is strange to see Leinster struggling for creativity in the backs - not that long ago they were one of the most lethal attacking backlines in Europe, often scoring from first phase moves.

I've got a name for the condition...it's called O'Connoritis

We also have a dose of Sexton deficiency.