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Glasgow snapping at Leinster's heels atop URC table with Sharks win
By PA
Glasgow Warriors strengthened their hold on second place in the BKT United Rugby Championship with a 21-10 win against the Hollywoodbets Sharks.
First-half scores from George Horne, Max Williamson and Kyle Steyn looked to have left Warriors in good shape to go on to claim a bonus point.
But they were shut out after the restart by a largely second-string Sharks side who added their second try through Ntutchuko Mchunu to make for a nervy conclusion around Scotstoun.
Dan Jooste had scored in the first period for the Durban side who had left many of their Springbok internationals at home to prepare for their forthcoming EPCR Challenge Cup semi-final.
Glasgow had been frustrated by a doughty Sharks defence in their first few attempts to get over the line but the pressure eventually told.
Horne was alert to the possibilities as he took a quick tap penalty before burrowing his way over the line from close range. The scrum-half converted his own score.
The home side continued to push for a second try and it eventually arrived off the back of a flowing team move.
Facundo Cordero fielded Tom Jordan’s wayward pass and weaved his way towards the line before offloading to Zander Fagerson.
When Jack Dempsey was then held up, the Scotland number eight had the awareness to shove a pass to Williamson who crossed the line. Horne again converted.
Sharks, however, to their credit, did not fold and enjoyed a sustained period of pressure in the Glasgow 22.
Repeat infringements from the home side kept them out but at the expense of a yellow card shown in Scott Cummings’ direction.
With Warriors reduced to 14 men, Sharks took advantage with Jooste crashing over to get his team on the board. Curwin Bosch missed the conversion effort.
There was still time for Glasgow to score again before the half was out. With the clock in the red, it all came down again to Horne’s quick thinking.
The scrum-half’s first pass found Sione Tuipulotu who was held up but Horne’s second ball to Steyn allowed the Warriors captain to burst beyond Murray Koster to score. Horne again made the extras.
The second half was a scrappy affair, with neither side able to get into any kind of rhythm.
It was Sharks who scored the only points, a terrific run from prop Mchunu finishing with him stretching for the line.
Siya Masuka missed the conversion attempt as Glasgow held on to record a hard-fought victory.
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Latest Comments
They would improve a lot of such a scheme were allowed though JD, win win :p
Go to commentsI rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.
He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.
The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).
The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.
The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).
It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.
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