Northampton 24 Glasgow 15: Early lead proves insufficient as injuries leave Townsend's troops exposed in defence

Senior Sports Writer

Monday 15 October 2012

The brutal reality of Heineken Cup rugby was brought home to Glasgow Warriors at Franklin's Gardens yesterday, but by no means in the fashion that had been widely expected.

Northampton's Samu Manoa easily hands off Glasgow's Sean Lamont, while George Pisi, left, soars over for a try. Pictures: Getty and PA

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Kevin Ferrie

On either side of the border the traditional expectation/fear (delete according to taste) may be that the better English teams will bully their Scottish opponents from the off, but that could hardly have been further from the case as Glasgow built what they would previously have considered an unassailable 15-point lead.

Instead, as they battled to deal with crucial injuries to their back-line, that hard-earned advantage was overhauled in the space of eight minutes either side of half-time.While Glasgow consequently finished the weekend in the same position as Edinburgh, having lost to English opponents and conceded a four-try bonus point, it would be a calumny to seek to equate the two performances in any way.Yet, once the disappointment has been dealt with, they must reflect on the way they contributed to their own failure to make the sort of statement they should have at this important time in Anglo-Celtic relations as the debate over the structure of European competition goes on. Not least Gregor Townsend, their head coach, who for by no means the first time in his professional career took a huge gamble and lost. The man who so often infuriated Scottish supporters in his cavalier playing days paid the price for opting to include only two backs among his eight replacements.That risk having been taken, there was somehow an air of inevitability as Stuart Hogg, the starlet whose talent is such that he was asked to make his first start of the season on such an important occasion, hobbled off just 10 minutes into the first half. It was, apparently, a different injury to the ankle problem that delayed his start to this season, but regardless of that the whole point of officialdom extending to eight the number of replacements available to coaches was to allow for a full front-row, a lock and a flanker, as well as three backs.How that contributed to the way Ruaridh Jackson desperately sought to stay on the pitch in the closing minutes of the first half after suffering what was clearly a debilitating hip injury is moot. However, it seemed no coincidence that Glasgow's defence was broken twice in the time he was hobbling around.The second half began with Nikola Matawalu, a specialist scrum-half, albeit Townsend noted that he has played full-back for Fiji, on a wing with Sean Lamont shifting to the centre.However, just before Vasily Artemyev claimed that important fourth touchdown for the home team, Lamont's departure consequently saw him replaced by hooker Finlay Gillies, with Chris Fusaro pressed into service as an emergency centre. Teams such as Northampton ruthlessly exploit such vulnerability, but it was all the more cruel because rarely has a Scottish side given itself such an opportunity not only to beat one of the leading English teams but to do so emphatically.Opportunities had already been spurned by the time Peter Horne kicked them into the lead and, for all that Courtney Lawes was wowing home spectators with some huge hits, that was rather reminiscent of how Jason White used to do so in losing causes for Scotland in his hey-day as Glasgow dominated the breakdown and more than held their own in the set-piece.When, then, Lamont and Jackson combined to set up the opening try for Josh Strauss it was not only deserved but overdue, a point reinforced four minutes later when the internationalist winger raced into the left corner for their second to put them 15 points clear.The Saints were seriously confronting the sort of embarrassment that had befallen Edinburgh the previous day at that stage and after Steve Myler badly pushed their first shot at goal wide of the target they looked exceedingly jittery.It all changed, however, when they saw their chance and seized it, albeit the first of their scores was decidedly fortuitous. As they shifted the ball left in closing on the Glasgow line George Pisi initially did well in injecting pace to expose the presence of forwards in the wider defensive channels, but as he tried to pop a scoring pass over Tommy Seymour's head the Glasgow winger was unlucky to see it rebound into the Saints centre's hands.No sooner had the Samoan plunged over the line, got up and dusted himself off than he was crossing the Glasgow line again, this time after brother Ken had ripped through the midfield defence as the Saints attacked down the left.Myler converted from in frontof the posts as the first half ended, then scored the try that put Saints into the lead just three minutes into the second after fine handling by front-row forwards Brian Mujato and Dylan Hartley.Glasgow did well to regroup and still had a chance to steal the win after some heroic defending in which Peter Murchie made try-saving tackles on Artemeyev and Hartley in either corner.As Saints maintained the pressure, however, a simple miss move in the midfield was sufficient to let Myler send Artemyev into the left corner for a try which, when converted by Ryan Lamb, meant that Northampton took everything they wanted from the encounter, and Glasgow nothing.

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Northampton 24 Glasgow 15: Early lead proves insufficient as injuries leave Townsend's troops exposed in defence

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