FOR the first 40 minutes on Saturday Glasgow were on top of Edinburgh. For the first 60 minutes they were in contention. For the vital final 20, however, they were second best by some margin, leaving them with a lot of thinking to do before the teams meet again on Friday.
With the 1872 Cup and their hope of a play-off place gone, the Warriors will have little to play for but pride in that match. Pride is usually enough when they line up against their old rivals, but the curious thing in Saturday’s 30-15 defeat was the way in which the fire went out of their game.
They kicked away some possession when they would normally have attacked ball in hand, and notwithstanding a rousing finale in which they just failed to score, they did not look as sharp over the piece as their opponents. According to captain Fraser Brown, that was at least partly down to giving too much ball away.
“We defended a lot in the first half and coped well, but if you’re giving the opposition 65 per cent of possession then you’re going to get tired, particularly when it’s your first game in a long time,” the hooker said.
“How we control how we’re playing is a big talking point in the changing room, how we can control the flow of the game better.
“We were disappointed with our discipline. We gave away too much ball at breakdown and we didn’t adapt quickly enough in the game. That just gave Edinburgh field position and we had to defend a lot – and for large parts we defended well.
“I felt we defended the breakdown well. Our attacking breakdown and how we look after the ball is something we need to improve. It’s about generally when to play in the right areas and getting into our attack shape as quickly as possible.”
Having waited since the end of February to play again, the Warriors are now in the curious position of having just one more match before again going into cold storage - albeit for a far shorter spell this time. As they are out of Europe as well as the PRO14 play-offs, their 2019-20 season will end on Friday. September will then be a truncated close season before the new league campaign starts on the first weekend in October.
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