Glasgow Warriors v Cardiff Blues , 1 Dec 2017, Scotstoun

I would play the same 23 that played at Swansea. No idea if its being shown live on TV. These decisions are as bizarre as the refereeing allocations. Oh well at least we don't have Clancy or Lacey - its Nige.

According to this it's on BBC Alba, which is what I would expect.

https://twitter.com/GlasgowWarriors/status/935474303453286400

I agree re the 23, would give the internationals a week off, though DR might be tempted to put a couple on the bench, e.g. Gray as we're a bit light in the second row at the moment, Fraser Brown as he's working his way back from injury, guys like Pyrgos and Bhatti who didn't play too many minutes. George Horne has been doing the interview rounds, which is usually a sound indication that he'll be involved.

Any injury updates on Swinson and Harley?

I don't think it will be far off the Swansea team and I am not expecting to see any of the Scots internationals back.

He might be tempted to go with some of the others though, Niko or Peterson for example. Cardiff did beat Connacht last weekend, so they can't be playing to badly. We struggled to beat them down at their place earlier on, so can't take them to lightly.

15. Ruaridh Jackson (123)

14. Lelia Masaga (4)

13. Alex Dunbar (103)

12. Sam Johnson (32)

11. Leonardo Sarto (15)

10. Peter Horne (125)

9. Henry Pyrgos (134)



1. Alex Allan (60)

2. George Turner (10)

3. Siua Halanukonuka (1)

4. Kiran McDonald (1)

5. Scott Cummings (27)

6. Callum Gibbins (8) CAPTAIN

7. Matt Smith (7)

8. Ryan Wilson (134)



Replacements:



16. James Malcolm (19)

17. Jamie Bhatti (15)

18. D’Arcy Rae (33)

19. Brian Alainu'uese (19)

20. Samu Vunisa (1)

21. George Horne (7)

22. Adam Hastings (3)

23. Niko Matawalu (81)



Unavailable players: Adam Ashe (ankle), Matt Fagerson (knee), Nick Grigg (head), Rob Harley (knee), Stuart Hogg (hip), Rory Hughes (shoulder), Oli Kebble (foot), Pat MacArthur (hamstring), Greg Peterson (ankle), Tim Swinson (hand), Ratu Tagive (achilles), Richie Vernon (Achilles) and Lewis Wynne (concussion)

Strong team - he's certainly not wanting to lose his winning streak any time soon!

Pity for Nick Grigg and Greg Peterson but great to see Alex Dunbar back.   AD not played a lot with Sam Johnson but should go well. .  Injuries really piling up now so the young guys are on stand- by.    I knew Big Leo would play - he is a man on a mission.
We Are Warriors   !

Looking at that bench There's serious pace in Horne, Hastings and MadMadMata. There's also some big ball carriers in the forwards' replacements.
If the Blues are not well ahead after 55 minutes the latter stages of the match could be very tiring for them.
Tiring as in the Seventh Cavalry found the Little Big Horn tiring in the extreme.

Looking forward to seeing how Halanukonuka gets on - his first act off the bench last week was to demolish his opposite number and earn a scrum penalty.

Whether he has the fitness for Glasgow's style of play just now is another question!

Or Jim The French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu ?    Zoot alors !

Great to see Big Bad Brian back but it is a shame that Peterson is out after playing for the USA. McDonald is getting a serious opportunity to earn playing time when the 6 nations roll around.

Home debuts for Vunisa, McDonald and Nuka. Really looking forward to seeing how they get on. Vunisa and Brian coming on would be deflating to any opponent along with the idea of keeping up with G Horne.

It is always weird to think about how young the front 5 of Glasgow. Of the 9 available, only Nuka is over the age of 25 (even if Brian looks around 50). Have to try and remember that Rae would only just be starting to get matches in most squads and he already has 30+ caps before turning 23.

I sat next to Big Brian at he NZ game.

He is big.

Very big.

And loads of grey hairs which is weird for a 23 year old.

Tattie, take he wasn't limping and didn't attack you or anything like that

Tattie, who was he cheering for? Did you shout, "Fecc off ya cheating barstewards" at any point?

jimbopip wrote:Tattie, who was he cheering for? Did you shout, "Fecc off ya cheating barstewards" at any point?

The fact that he was posting about it today would suggest not!

Bit worried that we are flogging Bhatti a bit in his first full pro season. He will likely have to start for the next two weekends for the euro games and maybe could have done with a rest for this one.

It is not exactly a ringing endorsement for how he feels about Ryan Grant either. He does not appear to be undergoing a renaissance back at Scotstoun.

With Keeble still injured we remain pretty tight at LH.

jimbopip wrote:Tattie, who was he cheering for? Did you shout, "Fecc off ya cheating barstewards" at any point?

Yeah the phrase came out a few times.

My mate made a comment about 'Brad Barritt' which didn't go down well with some Kiwi girl who got a proper hump on about it.

We also told Brian to practice Flower of Scotland because he'd be singing it on the pitch soon enough which amused him.

Nice fella though fair play.

BigGee wrote:Bit worried that we are flogging Bhatti a bit in his first full pro season. He will likely have to start for the next two weekends for the euro games and maybe could have done with a rest for this one.

It is not exactly a ringing endorsement for how he feels about Ryan Grant either. He does not appear to be undergoing a renaissance back at Scotstoun.

With Keeble still injured we remain pretty tight at LH.

He, Bhatti is not starting though. Anyway think Kebble might start next week. Him at LH and The Nuke at TH should give Big Vern nightmares

21st Century Schizoid Man wrote:

BigGee wrote:Bit worried that we are flogging Bhatti a bit in his first full pro season. He will likely have to start for the next two weekends for the euro games and maybe could have done with a rest for this one.

It is not exactly a ringing endorsement for how he feels about Ryan Grant either. He does not appear to be undergoing a renaissance back at Scotstoun.

With Keeble still injured we remain pretty tight at LH.

He, Bhatti is not starting though.     Anyway think Kebble might start next week.    Him at LH and The Nuke at TH should give Big Vern nightmares  

Would be good to see Big Oli back, even if just on the bench, we will need him against what I imagine will be a sizable Montpellier pack. I can't see him starting though but if he could do 30 mins in the second half would be very useful.

DR has kind of hinted that if we lose the home leg in the Euro cup, that will be it for us and he will stand a few down for the following week back in France. As I am going to that match, am hoping that won't be the case. Conversely if Pelly lose to us then they are definitely out and also might not be so bothered about the return. So still plenty to play for next week imho.

Ach. Solo commentary just isn't good. Need the banter. Bring back Peter Wright

The camera work is shocking. Clearly BBC Alba funding being used for this

I think the red card was a touch harsh, but on saying that he hit Turner with his shoulder straight to the face, and Turner has failed his HIA

If he hadn't led with the shoulder it would have been a yellow at most. Only got himself to blame I'm afraid.

Glasgow are making hard work of the advantage though with numerous knock ons. Their handling just isn't as good as Edinburgh's

Good greif Glasgow are making hard work of this

Glasgow contrived to make that way more difficult than it had to be. Last couple of tries were deserved in the grand scheme of things but not exactly a good performance. Summed up by Sarto going for the line rather than the easy pass inside to Dunbar. Ended up not scoring in that attack.

McDonald played well enough to play the entire game and that is a great sign for his development getting a couple of caps under his belt.

Bit of a worry about the injury to Turner. Brown and MacArthur also out. The lineout was not functioning with Malcolm and that will need to be rectified for next week against Montpellier.

This game turned on the red and whilst I am sympathetic towards Filise, he ultimately did not wrap enough with a shoulder hitting the head. I thought Turner was low but the replay showed that was not the case. Hopefully both get back on the field soon.

Filise is 40 years old, i bet during his career he has never seen such a soft red card given.

There are double tackles like that literally every game.

Still by letter of laws a red card. Turned game as Cardiff were smothering us out of it esp Nick Williams. Henry P needs to get his form back soon or he will end up our No 3 SH. Sarto continues his one man mission to prove Italy very wrong indeed. Thy must be really good if they can afford to drop him

I don't understand why we have drifted away from having neutral referees. It appears to me that referees often seem keen to show their impartiality by being harder on teams from his own nation, particularly when they are playing away.

Newsilure wrote:I don't understand why we have drifted away from having neutral referees. It appears to me that referees often seem keen to show their impartiality by being harder on teams from his own nation, particularly when they are playing away.

Excuse me for saying so, but what utter bollox. Did you watch this match?

Nigel Owens did a fine job in a game where neither team were playing well. The red was a red, to the letter of the law (especially with the new law changes regarding contact with the head). And the red made all the difference in this game.

Cardiff did very well considering at one point the had 13 men and still held firm as Glasgow blew chances left, right and centre. Had Filise not been red carded, Cardiff may well have won that game, as they had found a way to slow Glasgow's game. You wouldn't be so quick to criticise the neutrality of the ref if that had been the case.

Just watched the game now as was working last night.

Glasgow never really got out of third gear but still won quite comfortably in the end. Credit to Blues though who defended admirably before running out of steam in the end.

I went to the match down in Cardiff, which they should have won and they were very tough to break down then as well. They have been the toughest Welsh team we have played this season by some way. They never capitulated like the Spreys did last weekend at home and seem to be doing currently against Munster.

The red card was unlucky but probably correct, a clear shoulder to the head and Turner was left spark out because of it. That sort of play just won't wash any more, despite it being common place historically. Things have moved on and quite rightly. Players just need to adapt.

Anyway, we just take the points and move on. It will be a very different team out for us next week for the Pelly game. A few players did put their hands up though.

Will he play George Horne on the bench? On form he probably aught to.

Big Samu had a decent shift at No.8 when he came on. I can see him playing next week with Wilson and Gibbins on the flanks. He brings a bit of heft to the role, but I am not sure if he has the legs for 80 mins yet. With the injuries to Fagerson and Harley and Smith going off early in this game, we may be a bit short of back row cover and it may be Lewis Wynne covering the bench.

Wings are going to be a difficult call as well. Sarto really wanting to claim his place and Jones and Massaga also been playing well. Has a week off got Tommy S back in the grove as well?

Going to be an interesting team, minus Hoggy I would imagine.

A Simply Mesmeric Try wrote:

Newsilure wrote:I don't understand why we have drifted away from having neutral referees. It appears to me that referees often seem keen to show their impartiality by being harder on teams from his own nation, particularly when they are playing away.

Excuse me for saying so, but what utter bollox. Did you watch this match?

Nigel Owens did a fine job in a game where neither team were playing well. The red was a red, to the letter of the law (especially with the new law changes regarding contact with the head). And the red made all the difference in this game.

Cardiff did very well considering at one point the had 13 men and still held firm as Glasgow blew chances left, right and centre. Had Filise not been red carded, Cardiff may well have won that game, as they had found a way to slow Glasgow's game. You wouldn't be so quick to criticise the neutrality of the ref if that had been the case.

I did watch the match and reviewed that incident several times. In my opinion that is the type of collision seen frequently and would not always, or often, result in a card of any colour. It looked very much to me as if the Glasgow player was knocked at speed towards Filise by Cook's tackle not allowing Filise much chance to get his arm wrapped.

Anyway the point I was ineptly trying to make was why do we no longer have neutral referees in the pro 14? We wouldn't ask Nigel Owens to referee Wales v Scotland so why does he end up reffing Warriors v Blues. Refs of his class are people of great integrity and would never favour their home nation but by concentrating on avoiding doing that do they subconsciously lean to far the other way. With the league being made up of five nations surely it should be simple to ensure neutral refs for all matches.

Well done Warriors we have played two good games against you this year .... I am hoping we can make it third time lucky if we get a crack you in the play offs ... but we have a lot of work to do to even get in them.

I think in an ideal world, they would prefer neutral refs and to some extent they do whenever possible.

Unfortunately there is not an even spread of suitable refs within the countries to make that possible currently. Scotland in particular have had a dearth of decent international standard refs for some time, though that is slowly being addressed.

At the end of the day though, I would rather have a top quality ref like Owens than a neutral one, who was not up to it. It is poor refs that spoil games, not bias ones (sub-conscious or otherwise).

If its any consolation to you Newslure Cardiff were the best team we have seen (Pro14) at Scotstoun and away.    You should make it to at least third for a play off place.   Blues defence was excellent throughout and the last 2 tries flattered us as your guys legs had run out.    Glasgow have not quite clicked yet but when they do and we recover from a horrendous injury list someone is going to get a real hammering.  
 
Anyway good luck to the Blues for the rest of the season as you deserve 3rd place but watch for the Cheetahs.