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Connacht beat Glasgow outfit loaded with Scotland World Cup stars
By PA
Connacht scored 20 unanswered points in 15 second-half minutes to see off Glasgow Warriors 34-26 at the Sportsground to maintain their winning start to the BKT United Rugby Championship.
Tom Jordan’s try on the stroke of half-time had Warriors leading 19-14, with Kyle Rowe scoring on his debut and their maul forcing a penalty try. Diarmuid Kilgallen crossed for Connacht to add to JJ Hanrahan’s three penalties.
Indeed, Glasgow leaked 15 points from penalties and were held scoreless for most of the final 40 minutes. Dylan Tierney-Martin, Kilgallen and Cathal Forde put Connacht well clear before replacement Jamie Dobie’s last-minute bonus-point score.
Summer signing Hanrahan was influential from the tee again, landing three penalties inside the opening 14 minutes to settle Connacht into their stride. The middle one came on the back of a Joe Joyce interception.
Glasgow got a gift of a try in response though, as Forde failed to deal with Jordan’s restart kick and the inrushing Rowe dribbled through and gathered the ball on the bounce to pull back seven points.
Connacht quickly hit back to lead 14-7, with Cian Prendergast stealing a lineout, Tom Farrell breaking past halfway and Caolin Blade’s kick through sat up invitingly for Kilgallen to go over in the left corner.
Glasgow drew level in the 24th minute, their maul doing the damage as Angus Fraser surged towards the line and Jarrad Butler conceded a penalty try for side-entry, with referee Adam Jones also flashing his yellow card.
A Niall Murray lineout steal, coupled with a crucial scrum penalty, saw the Scots miss out on a second try during Butler’s absence, but Huw Jones’ inside pass sent Jordan sidestepping over to put them ahead for the first time.
Five minutes after the restart, Prendergast fed hooker Tierney-Martin to crash over just beside the posts. Young centre Forde converted and then used a scrum penalty kick the westerners into a 24-19 lead.
Rory Darge went off his feet at a ruck, allowing Forde to widen the gap to eight points, and the classy Kilgallen doubled his tally by intercepting a Jordan pass for a 55-metre run-in. Forde’s conversion took his tally to 10 points.
Franco Smith’s men made sure they took home a bonus point late on, with Duncan Weir’s inside pass sending Rowe through a midfield gap and the supporting Dobie finished off. Replacement Weir also converted.
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Ashes to ashes
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Go to commentsI’m not fully convinced this was any sort of deliberate grand plan by SB, other than perhaps a masterful way (as it transpired) of dealing with injuries to a couple of key players in positions that lack high calibre alternatives in SB’s view. Losing Martin and Lawrence was disruptive to the team England ideally wanted and pretty likely both start if they had been able to. Ted Hill clearly isn’t fully trusted, despite being on the bench vs Scotland and Italy, and Slade may have had his day in light of an winger being drafted in to start as Test centre for the first time. Moving Earl to centre is worthwhile, in the right circumstances, as a proving exercise for future reference but it’s not the way to go against any of the top teams.
So they may well have added another page to their emergency playbook but I’m doubtful it was a genuine attempt at cutting edge innovation. More a case of necessity being the mother of invention that happened to suit the opposition on that given day. I guess we’ll know more in the Autumn but it won’t be until next year in Paris that the first real test of that set up would come against a heavy power team, IF it’s still in use ofc…
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