An ugly match and a desperate result for Glasgow.
After their heroic Rabodirect PRO12 win in Dublin last weekend, they failed to fire, failed to inspire, and gift-wrapped Treviso’s first-ever away victory in the competition with two shocking errors in the last couple of minutes.
The first, in the 78th minute, saw replacement fly-half Scott Wight push an easy penalty past the left-hand post. The second, with just 30 seconds left, came when hooker Pat MacArthur failed to find his jumper with his lineout throw as Glasgow tried to mount their final attack of the game. In such circumstances, it would be hard to argue that the Scots deserved to come out on top.
It was hard not to feel for Wight, who had also missed a relatively straightforward dropped goal, for he was clearly distraught at the end. The former Melrose playmaker had only been drafted into the match squad a few hours earlier, when Rob Dewey’s groin strain forced a reshuffle on the bench. Wight had looked uneasy as he lined up the fateful penalty, and the length of time he took over his preparations suggested an anxiety rarely seen in Duncan Weir, the player he had replaced a few minutes earlier.
“It’s disappointing,” said Glasgow coach Sean Lineen, which was just about the mildest assessment he could make. “After the Leinster result, all the talk had been about backing up that fantastic victory. But it seems to be the way: we can’t mentally get around it and back it up.
“It’s frustrating for the players because they worked their socks off. The effort is there; it’s just the top three inches. There were some poor decisions out there. We didn’t deal with the pressure of Treviso well.
“We will learn from it. It’s a cliché, but we have to learn from it. That’s a harsh lesson for us.”
Beforehand, Lineen had predicted that Treviso would be stuffy opponents, and his observation was borne out throughout a first half which ended with Kris Burton, the Italians’ fly-half, clipping over his third penalty to give his side a 9-7 interval lead. Along the way, their approach had been mirrored by their countryman, referee Alan Falzone, whose pernickety reading of the game was a persistent frustration for Glasgow.
Only once in that first period had Glasgow really put the phases together, and their slickness on the ball after a Tom Ryder break was rewarded when Weir slipped over for a try in the right corner after 12 minutes. Weir’s confident conversion spoke of even better things to come, but Glasgow became bogged down thereafter, allowing Treviso to gain a foothold over the next few minutes with two penalties from Burton.
The second of those was awarded for a piece of loose footwork by MacArthur that also brought a yellow card for the Glasgow hooker. All things considered, Glasgow did well not to sustain any more damage on the scoreboard during MacArthur’s absence, although it lent irony to the situation that they finally fell behind, to Burton’s third kick, shortly after his return.
Glasgow clearly stewed on that score during the interval, for there was a more obvious urgency about their efforts early in the second half.
Their up-tempo approach clearly unsettled Treviso, and within three minutes of the restart captain Antonio Pavanello was sent to the sin bin for a lurid offside offence. As he left, Weir drilled over the penalty that edged Glasgow in front again.
And yet, Glasgow could still not press their case with conviction. To their credit, they kept most of the play deep in the Treviso half, but it would be stretching it to say they applied sustained pressure. There was a flatness about them as Treviso were not noticeably weakened by the temporary loss of Pavanello, and the Italians even managed to regain the lead when Burton hammered over his fourth penalty, after 51 minutes.
As had happened against Leinster, Glasgow did seem to be bolstered by their second-half substitutions, and both Colin Gregor and Johnnie Beattie made immediate impacts. However, the Treviso defence was as obstinate as ever.
Wight, who had replaced Weir a few minutes earlier, kicked an assured penalty to regain the lead in the 67th minute, but Burton’s opportunist dropped goal, five minutes later, put Treviso back in front again.
Glasgow had their chances as the match drew towards its end, but they blew them spectacularly. As their players slouched off at the finish, Dublin seemed a very distant memory indeed.
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