It does not happen that often but the decision to award the man-of-the-match prize to a tighthead prop following the second of them spoke to the one area of clear distinction between the teams in the course of the festive derbies.
Edinburgh’s management are fully entitled to point out, as they did, that they had seven international front-row forwards unavailable to them and to draw some satisfaction from having hung on in the scrums as they did, but Glasgow still had to make the advantage of having their first choice trio of Scotland caps on the pitch tell.
They did so by taking the initiative, according to Zander Fagerson, the man singled out for the individual honour, deciding that they had to assert themselves on their less experienced opponents.
“Last week (at Murrayfield in the first of the derbies) we didn’t get the rewards we wanted and let the ref take it into his hands. This week we decided to do it ourselves,” he asserted.
The task of sorting out which member of a front-row unit did best generally comes down to open field contribution, however and Fagerson’s greater visibility in the loose doubtless made the difference.
“I don’t know who picked it, but fair play. I was very surprised, but it’s nice and I’ll take it,” he said, before reverting to type and seeking to ensure that his comrades in arms shared in the credit.
“Jamie Bhatti has been playing great recently, so has Fraser Brown,” he continued. “We have been building. The scrum wasn’t where it should have been at the start of the season, but we have built on it and we’re pretty chuffed.”
Beyond that it was not the easiest of performances to assess, Glasgow scoring the same number of points as they had in the first of the derbies and half as many tries, their sole score coming only as a result of Edinburgh handing them and their superior scrum a gift of an opportunity five metres out in injury time after they had frantically attempted to set up an attack from their own goal-line in a bid to salvage a bonus point and failed.
The key statistic was the difference in the number of points Edinburgh scored, however, after their 14 men generated a match winning 18 of them at Murrayfield and, in keeping with his role in the team, Fagerson was not remotely bothered about the absence of bells and whistles.
“Last week we weren’t happy with the performance. Today we weren’t perfect either, but a win’s a win. Keeping them to nil was pretty good as well. The try at the end sealed it so we’re pretty chuffed,” he observed.
It was pretty much the response that had been demanded of them by coaches who had to be concerned that after exiting the European Champions Cup without landing a significant blow on their three opponents, the Murrayfield defeat might have seen them lose momentum in the Pro14 after their dominant start to that campaign when winning their first 10 matches.
“Things didn’t click (at Murrayfield). That wasn’t us. We had a pretty rough debrief on Thursday after four days off for Christmas,” said Fagerson.
“We had a good hard look at ourselves and asked a few hard questions about where we want to be and who we want to be and how we want to play. Today was a start on the road. It will benefit us in the long run.
“We got told we were pretty shit in all areas. It wasn’t fun but it needed to be done and in the long run it will benefit us. It showed us we can’t just rock up and start throwing the ball away, but we’re building and we can only get better. We’re happy heading into the new year.”
A strange little sequence of matches now awaits, running into the Six Nations Championship. Their Murrayfield mugging ought to ensure there will be no slip up when they travel to Parma to meet perennial Italian strugglers Zebre on Saturday, but while they could hardly be blamed for having lost all interest in the European Champions Cup, whose fixtures will occupy the following two weekends, Fagerson insisted that would not be the case.
“We’ve got pride to play for… we’ll never lie down,” he said.
“I guess a few guys will get opportunities, but we’re not here to lie down, we’re here to get wins. There are a few exciting weeks coming up leading into a busy part of the season. We’re getting to the business end. This was a good start but we have to build on that.”
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