Glasgow Warriors 43
Connacht 17
PARITY LASTED JUST 45 seconds for Connacht in Scotstoun as the hosts blasted out of the traps on their way to a bonus point win.
Andy Friend’s men managed three tries from Stephen Fitzgerald, Paul Boyle and Tom Daly in response to the Warriors’ six from George Horne, Tim Swinson and doubles from Grant Stewart and Robbie Nairn.
Dave Rennie’s men well and truly hit the ground running against their Pro14 Conference A rivals, Kyle Steyn cut inside Matt Healy to make the initial break and scrum-half Horne was on his shoulder and gleefully finished the stunning first-minute effort.
Connacht hit back with a 21st minute try from Stephen Fitzgerald, who stormed away to finish in the right-hand side after Tiernan O’Halloran lifted a bouncing pass to send his wing away.
On a tough night for young out-half Conor Fitzgerald, the conversion was missed, one of three kicks sent wide of the posts in the first-half.
The Warriors responded to Connacht’s score by tightening up and taking a more direct approach. Brandon Thomson used his boot more to control the game and his pack carried hard into Connacht to bring a try for Swinson.
James Cannon was sin-binned for dragging down a 38th minute maul, and by the time he returned in the second half, Glasgow had a bonus point and hooker Stewart had two tries to his name.
Trailing 24-5 at the interval, the Westerners showed their attacking teeth once restored to 15 men. Kieran Marmion showing no signs of rust after his injury lay-off and Paul Boyle forced a try just after the hour to underline his impact off the bench.
A third try came for the Westerners through another inventive move, O’Halloran chipping from midfield into the arms of the charging Cian Kelleher. He offloaded to Kyle Godwin, who in turn sent Tom Daly over the try-line
Having began the night nine points ahead of Connacht, though, Glasgow were in no mood to leave the gap in single figures and they rounded out an impressive win with tries from Nairn coming either side of Daly’s score.
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Tough night, thanks to Munster for doing us a favour. Next weeks game is huge now.
Woeful. Simply woeful. At least Munster did us a favour.
@Colin Stakem: please explain exactly what facets of the Connacht game were as you describe so graphically ‘woeful’
@Brian Jones: As someone who was there, the defensive line was a shambles, way to narrow, no talking, no agression in the tackle. Our young outhalf had a nightmare, his confidence was gone early, missed seven points in first half kicks that should be gimmies at this level. 0 from 3. 2 knock ons from attacking lineouts in the first half, Kyle Godwin butchering a certain try with a forward pass without pressure. Our aggression in defence was poor as Glasgow seemed to score everytime they had time in our 22. Matt Healys missed tackle that led directly to a try gave warriors early momentum. The second half was better, couldn’t fault the effort, but it was the lack of completing the basics well such as catching, passing, communication and agression in defence, as well as a lack of ‘big moment’ leadership and overall team cohesion. Maybe to be expected when 3 of our backs are on loan from Munster and Leinster.
Connaught is spelt Connacht for those who support Connaught
Ospreys next, at least munster limited the damage of that performance, hopefully Edinburgh can do us another favour tomorrow, hopefully they can up it next week or 3rd place will be a pipedream
Shocking and embarrassing result. Hard to take.
@Prof. William Joyce: Hardly embarrassing but should have came away with a least 1 BP as we butchered an amount of chances. As per usual Whitehouse didn’t do us any favours with the penalty that led to warriors second try and Coby’s disallowed try.
One thing that is a plain as day though is that neither Fitzgerald nor Horwitz are viable alternatives to Carty, backup a OH badly needed.
Watched the game at home and was afraid when any Connacht player made contact as Whitehouse would have called it. He is such a muffin
Pathetic performance tonight, that was embarrassing, players need to reflect and ask themselves was that good enough, a second string Glasgow hammered them look at the scoreline, we were bet up simple example after one of Glasgow tries Glasgow player picked up Kieran and flucg him like a bag of spuds not one connacht player got stuck in, not good enough lads
For those who might understand rugby, tonight was not a rugby game, it was a complete disgrace. While Whitehouse has always been useless he really took it to a new level tonight. He decided the result. What a complete £&£@#&(&4£#
Shockingly poor from Connaught, really disappointing.
Whitehouse is simply an idiot of such gigantic proportions, it is so hard to quantify