Glasgow V Montpellier - European Champions Cup Friday 8th December

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Glasgow Warriors v Montpellier Herault
European Champions Cup
Scotstoun Stadium
Friday 8th December
ko 19.35
Live on Sky Sports


The first match of the double header with both sides still to register a win and Glasgow without even a bonus point.

Still the cause is not completely lost, certainly mathematically. The hopeful thing being that whoever loses this match, won't really have much of an interest in the return, as they will definitely be out. So a good chance that either side could then be sitting on two wins with everything still to play for.

Glasgow's domestic form seems to have counted for little in Europe, admittedly against Leinster and Exeter, both unsurprisingly, have been very good. The arrival of our Tongan prop and the return of Fraser Brown should add a bit of stability to the pack though and hopefully Big Brian will be fit again to take the bench spot. Against that Hoggy seems unlikely to be fit and it is not clear if Huw Jones will be given another week off before he starts to earn his corn for the Warriors.

Montpellier are fulfilling the usual French stereotype of not travelling well and have lost their last two away games quite poorly, admittedly to Racing and table topping La Rochelle. It remains to be seen how bothered they are about Europe this season, maybe just being willing to concentrate on a run at the Top 14 title.

Either way it is an intriguing game and one that I am hoping will keep Glasgow's interest in the competition going, for at least another week, so I can see a live game when I go down to Montpellier.

Well we got what we deserved

Unfortunately Glasgow can do a whole lot better than that. We let ourselves down today.

It is going to have to be the league for us.

Wow what were they trying to do at the end, outmuscle the Montpellier forwards?

What a completely inept performance. Glasgow, the laughing stock of the Pro 14.

Great game to watch.

Commiserations Glasgow - you never gave up.

Eejit wrote:How did we manage to Frak that up.

In two words - George Turner!

He really needs a week or two off to think about what he did!

Pot Hale wrote:Great game to watch.

Are you serious about that?

This is one of the worst game i have seen. Possibly ever. Glasgow must have knocked the ball on at least 20 times.

VinceWLB wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:Great game to watch.

Are you serious about that?

This is one of the worst game i have seen. Possibly ever. Glasgow must have knocked the ball on at least 20 times.

Yes I’m serious. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

How many years have you been watching rugby?

Pot Hale wrote:

VinceWLB wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:Great game to watch.

Are you serious about that?

This is one of the worst game i have seen. Possibly ever. Glasgow must have knocked the ball on at least 20 times.

Yes I’m serious.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

How many years have you been watching rugby?

I can see it was a great game to watch for a neutral, but not for a Glasgow fan. I can't think of a game that has ever annoyed me as much as that one!

Unfortunately we will never get taken seriously as a team until we start doing better in Europe. We have got the team to do it now, so performances like that just drive you nuts!

Pot Hale wrote:

VinceWLB wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:Great game to watch.

Are you serious about that?

This is one of the worst game i have seen. Possibly ever. Glasgow must have knocked the ball on at least 20 times.

Yes I’m serious.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

How many years have you been watching rugby?

20 years, at least back then you could explain poor games with the game having just turned pro, tonight was just a horror show and you could tell on the Glasgow players face how sorry they were of their performance.

BigGee wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:

VinceWLB wrote:

Pot Hale wrote:Great game to watch.

Are you serious about that?

This is one of the worst game i have seen. Possibly ever. Glasgow must have knocked the ball on at least 20 times.

Yes I’m serious.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  

How many years have you been watching rugby?

I can see it was a great game to watch for a neutral, but not for a Glasgow fan. I can't think of a game that has ever annoyed me as much as that one!

Unfortunately we will never get taken seriously as a team until we start doing better in Europe. We have got the team to do it now, so performances like that just drive you nuts!

Yep I can understand that, Big Gee. Frustrating for Glasgow fans.

Commiserations again.

As Les Dawson said, " Mixed emotions: watching your mother in law drive off a cliff in your new car"

Some excellent play. Some epic brain farts. The ref deserved the chant of Are you Clancey iin disguise. We lost.

Reality was we were never likely to qualify after our first two games from this group. You can likely say the same for Montpellier as well. You can't really play catch up in this competition and we had given ourselves far to much to do.

Next year we simply have to get off to a better start than we did this year. I just hope that some of the players learn from some of the euro games this year. Despite our league form, we have been shown up as quite naïve in these games.

jimbopip wrote:As Les Dawson said, " Mixed emotions: watching your mother in law drive off a cliff in your new car"

Some excellent play. Some epic brain farts. The ref deserved the chant of Are you Clancey iin disguise. We lost.

I would not blame the ref, we shot ourselves in the foot. At one stage we were 7:1 up on penalties.

No-one asked Turner to pole axe a guy from behind when we were close to scoring at their end, which would have put the game away in all likliehood. We were never back in the game after that and had to play kamikaze from then on. It rarely works!

What did Turner do?

Referee was a total feckin bell end from start to finish. Way worse than Clancy and co. D4 will be interested I can assure you

RDW_Scotland wrote:What did Turner do?

Glasgow had Montpellier passing within their own 5m line with their back 3 and Picamoles was walking back onside (like most of the forwards). After the Montpellier player passed to Nadolo (ball in air), Turner ran shoulder first into Picamole's back (who was not near the ball). Nadolo skewed the kick under pressure and would have given Glasgow possession about 10m out with their tales up and Montpellier looking like they were not interested.

They kicked into another gear after the hit and the yellow. Ref did not cover himself in glory throughout the match and the hit took the pressure off Montpellier's penalty count that would have started getting to yellow territory at that point.

I think it's time we addressed something

Something I feel is rather important

We really can't call the west coast bunch "soap dodgers" any longer!!!

Why is this? Well their players are starting to be more preened and beautified with the possibility of only Sam H-C being the only Edinburgh player that spends more time in front of a mirror.

Hogg alone has more Gel in hair than the entire Edinburgh backline (excluding SHC). You just know that Huw Jones practises his sparkling smile in front of the mirror on a daily basis. And Ali Price is fast becoming the most moisturised, eye brow thinning, wash and blow dried sun-bed user since Webb of Wales.

Soap dodgers no more says I.

Glasgow Warriors Rugby Footbsll Club shall now be known as "The Boris Johnsons" for obvious reasons.

Ps. This only applies to the rugby team. Glasgow, its supporters and general inhabitants are still the unwashed. (Just saying)

Read in the match report that Johnson went off injured after 3 minutes and Montpellier exploited the 10-12 channel, with both Russell and Horne missing 4 tackles each.

I know he couldn't have foreseen Johnson going off after 3 minutes but why not have Dunbar on the bench for such a big game??

There surely must be more to the story then just a tactical decision? Madness.

Johnson off with broken jaw and hamstring injury.  Gibbins injured pre match  Sarto after scoring 2 excellent tries hobbled off.   Referee a total moron, way worse than Clancy, Lacey & co hence chants - missed by idiot SKY commentator.  Dunce ref easily influenced by Picamoles and that horrible ersehole Bismark du Plessis.    Turner's brain fart.   All this and Antarctica type temperatures made for an 'interesting' evening.

Broken jaw for Johnson, that is not good and will add to our injury list. Luckily we are not to bad in the backs at the moment, it is up front that we are struggling.

Hard to take any positives from that game. The only one that springs to mind is Ali Price showing exactly how to tackle Nadolo, something many others have tried to and failed this year. He really took him around the ankles. Easier when you are his size I guess but the sight of the smallest guy on the pitch bringing down the biggest whilst going full pelt brought a little warmth to my heart on an otherwise very cold night!

So, here's my post-mortem of this year's Brexit.

Execeterr
Continues to be a great weekend away. Lovely wee ground, very friendly people.
With ten minutes to go we were two points behind and camped in their half. Bru turned to me and said, "You know I think we can win this."   One penalty to Execeterr, one kick to the corner, one "moment" from His Nikoness and it was all over.
Ladyboys
On top midway through the first half then destroyed at one of our own scrums. Switched off for the ten minutes leading to the break and go in trailing. After that, as one Ladyboy fan said, we ran about as if our hair was on fire for forty minutes. And lost.
Moanpellier
Played them off the park for the first quarter. 12-5 they were on the ropes, hanging by a thread. The ghost of Paul Daniels possessed George Turner and he attempted a new variation on the old saw a body in half trick: use a shoulder instead of a handsaw.
We played 20 minutes with 14 men and they scored 21 points in that time. That we lost by 7 points tells its own story. However, the last quarter really saw a lot of "hair burning and running".

Could we have won all three games with slightly better game management? Most certainly.
Are all the pieces there for a successful season (domestic, sadly). Yes.
Do we have a wise, grizzled old warrior to calm the troops and adapt the gameplan to the moment?  
Is the future bright?
Bhatti-Brown-Zander                     (Kebble-Malcolm-Shooie Hala)
Gray-Bri                                       (Cummings-McDonald)
Batman-Ashe-Half Man-Half-Mullet (Harley-Fagerson-Smith)
Aldi Price                                      (Horne)
Hastings  AD After Dancer     (Horne)
Dunbar-Jones                               (Johnson-Grigg)
Sarto-Hogg-Seymour                    (Jones-Jackson-Hughes)

The second XV there could probably beat most sides in the Pro 14.

Yes it will remain a season of what ifs!

We could have won all three games, but we did not any of them. Got to take that on the chin and move on, it was not just bad luck. Europe is a different game and we have not adapted to it this year.

We probably did not have massive expectations this year, especially from our group and with a developing squad and new coach. However to lose all three and have the distinct possibility of being nilled now, has not been a great experience and not one that requires excuses. Just not good enough really.

Hopefully we can salvage some pride from the remaining games.

We can certainly mess with the others and decide who goes through. Last time the Exeter Cultural Appropriation Society came North we gave them a serious hiding.

Just watching Exeter v Leinster now and they are putting on some game. Not high scoring, but awesome in terms of physical commitment.

WE could beat either of them on our day, but we would really need to be on our A game and there has not been much sign of that in Europe this year. Hard to argue if one or both of them goes through, they both look a lot better than Montpellier did.

Maybe in the next few games, with nothing to lose, we will relax and play a lot better. We have certainly been trying way to hard in all three games so far.

The difference is BG that Leinster can play it both ways - expansive or grind it out /conservative. They got their tactics bang on yesterday. In the Pro14 game at Scotstoun Leinster tried to chuck it around and we picked them off - putting 31 points on them a week after they ground us down at Scotstoun in the Euros. Exeter ground us down at Sandy Park and we got sucked in to an arm wrestle to a degree.

Huge win for Leinster yesterday - I can't see Glasgow beating them in Dublin.

Looks like Glasgow's only chance of a win will be Exeter at home, which is doable but will Rennie put out his full strength team just to salvage some pride?

There has been lots of talk about what sort of side we will put out in the remaining games, including that we should just send a team of kids out to Montpellier next weekend as the game will mean nothing.

I don't agree with that as throwing games is not a culture I would subscribe to and fortunately the Euro Cup rules won't allow it either, as he will have to pick from within his euro squad.

There will be a bit of rotation for the next game and for the ones in January but I do still expect him to put out a strong team and one that is capable of winning any of these games. There are a lot of hungry players in the Warriors squad who have to take their chances in these big games.

It will be interesting to see what mentality the team brings to a dead rubber match. Will it relax them and let them play their own game, or will they wish that they were doing something else that afternoon.

They are professional players at the end of the day and you would hope they would treat the match as such.

Glasgow kind of disgraced the Pro 14 this weekend.. Hope they put out their strongest side in the remaining games and as importantly with the right mindset. Otherwise, they might never be considered a serious threat in Europe.

Disgraced is maybe a bit too strong a word - they haven't won a game but have been competitive in all of them, and 2 out of 3 of the games they got themselves in a game winning position but failed to follow through.

It's not like Edinburgh under Bradley who didn't score a single point in their first 2 games the year after their semi final run!

Disappointing - yes

Naïve - yes

Self-destructive - yes

Disgraceful - definitely not!

Disgraceful is when you don't turn up and compete and we are certainly not guilty of that, even if we are very much of the first three descriptions!

RDW_Scotland wrote:Disgraced is maybe a bit too strong a word - they haven't won a game but have been competitive in all of them, and 2 out of 3 of the games they got themselves in a game winning position but failed to follow through.

It's not like Edinburgh under Bradley who didn't score a single point in their first 2 games the year after their semi final run!

They were blown away by Leinster at home as far as i can remember, were never going to win that game.

At least Edinburgh had one good run in the big euro comp and might even have reached the final if they had a reserve front row

BigGee wrote:
Disgraceful is when you don't turn up and compete and we are certainly not guilty of that, even if we are very much of the first three descriptions!

Haven't seen all Glasgow games this season but against Montpellier they certainly didn't look like a team that has barely lost a game since september, some of the mistakes were just cringeworthy. That said having Jackson (although he wasn't the worst of the bunch) covering at full back was a huge step down on Hogg.

VinceWLB wrote:

BigGee wrote:
Disgraceful is when you don't turn up and compete and we are certainly not guilty of that, even if we are very much of the first three descriptions!

Haven't seen all Glasgow games this season but against Montpellier they certainly didn't look like a team that has barely lost a game since september, some of the mistakes were just cringeworthy. That said having Jackson (although he wasn't the worst of the bunch) covering at full back was a huge step down on Hogg.

That is very apparent.   Idiot !

Glasgow totally outplayed Montpellier for long periods. Montpellier scored 21 of their points when playing against fourteen men. Glasgow were still within seven points at the end. Hardly a "disgrace".
If anyone has disgraced the Pro 12 this year it is the Ospreys, who haven't turned up yet in the league but have managed to put together good performances in Europe. That stinks of a lack of motivation and unwillingness to make an effort in the bread and butter fixtures.
Conversely Glasgow probably lost to Exeter and Montpellier because they tried to play too much running rugby too soon.

Europe came a bit too early for us I think, coupled with some unforeseen injuries. Glasgow will have a far beefier pack next year with Brown packing down with Kebble and the Nuke on either side of him.

This is certainly not intended as a slight on Bhatti and Ragnar who have been ever present this season, but its about having the options in the squad to be able to play a slightly different way.

You can't call the Boris Johnsons of Scottish rugby a disgrace. They're playing against teams with decades of Euro competition experience.

Make no bones about it. As a club, compared to Montpellier and co, Glasgow are very much still in their infancy.

They'll be back I'm sure

Glasgow's continued failure in Europe (worse even than last season so far) should encourage a few Scottish fans to calm down on their lofty predictions for the 6 Nations. I think both sides (Glasgow and Scotland) are some way off challenging.

Time to dampen down the ambitions and boasting of greatness?

Who on here has been boasting of greatness, or at least not then caveating it with many ifs and buts?

The press have been getting carried away but the average Scotland fan has confidence that we could do well but there are many ifs and buts for that to happen...

Aviva 0/6 is a good return from the best league in the world too tbf

Cyril wrote:Glasgow's continued failure in Europe (worse even than last season so far) should encourage a few Scottish fans to calm down on their lofty predictions for the 6 Nations. I think both sides (Glasgow and Scotland) are some way off challenging.

Time to dampen down the ambitions and boasting of greatness?

Nope.

So sod off.

reallybored wrote:

Cyril wrote:Glasgow's continued failure in Europe (worse even than last season so far) should encourage a few Scottish fans to calm down on their lofty predictions for the 6 Nations. I think both sides (Glasgow and Scotland) are some way off challenging.

Time to dampen down the ambitions and boasting of greatness?

Nope.

So sod off.

Turner gets cited for his off the ball challenge on Picamoles.

He will get a ban and probably deserves one, for stupidity as much as anything else. It might just teach him a lesson, you would hope so.

It did not tick the head and neck boxes, which is probably what saved him at the time but it was so off the ball and was intentional and did some damage. Picamoles was down for a good few mins and needed a HIA afterwards. I did not get the impression he was faking it.

I would have been looking for a red if that had been done to a Glasgow player in a match.

If he has got any sense, he will plead guilty and say sorry a lot, then take the 2 or three weeks they give him.

Glasgow clearly anticipating this and have drafted Stewart, the academy hooker into the Euro squad.

Hopefully Turner will learn that there are consequences to stupidity on the pitch.

Given how last season concluded in both league and cup, I don't think we should have been expecting to progress far in europe.
New management, amended squad, international obligations and injury complications I think make europe a step too far, for this season, and realistically at this stage of development of this group it would have been a tall ask anyway.
However, to be sitting on 10 wins from 10 games in the league is a fair achievement, that no other squads in the Pro14 have managed.
Dropping out of europe should allow us to concentrate on a serious league title challenge, and galvanise the squad for a season together, ready for a proper shot next season. Another season's experience all round will do this already experienced and able squad a power of good. Remember how they learned after losing the pro12 title in 2014, and then wiped the floor with Munster the following year? They will do it again, but next season they'll have more nowse and more b@stard about them, and I can sniff a successful europe for us next season.
The brainless negativity on here from the sheep-worrying wandering trolls merely highlights the doubts and fears about their own european and league (Scarlets excepted) failings and impending 6N stumblings.
Glasgow will learn, and I'm sure DR will solve it for us. He's not even been with us 6 months yet, so lets keep a lid of realism on it?