Guest Blogger: Glasgow's week

Guest blogger and Glasgow fan 'The Pen' reviews the last week from a Warriors perspective.

Connacht- Tick. Leinster- Tick.

It’s very early in the season to be talking about Championships and glory but you just get the feeling that in Gregor Townsend’s final hurrah as Warriors coach, Glasgow might just be the team to beat.

A comprehensive performance which included some resolute defending and clinical attacking put Leinster to the sword when they had threatened to give Glasgow a real scare.  4 tries from Tommy Seymour, taking his tally to 6 in 2 games and a 2nd successive score for Tim Swinson gave the Warriors another bonus point victory and kept them joint top of the table with the Ospreys.

Leinster led at half time despite Glasgow taking an early lead. Seymour and Kearney exchanged scores with Swinson giving Glasgow the lead just inside the half hour but when Leonardo Sarto was shown a yellow card by John Lacey, Leinster upped their game and with Josh Van Der Flier bursting through the Warriors defensive line followed by Zane Kirchner after a beautiful cross field kick by Joey Carberry meant a 12-19 lead for the Dubliners at half time.

Glasgow upped the pressure in the second half and forced Carberry into a loose pass which was intercepted by Seymour to score and he then completed his hat-trick when more loose Leinster play allowed him to almost recreate the previous score and then completed the scoring with Glasgow’s 5th of the match to ensure that Glasgow took all 5 points available and condemned their visitors to nothing when Pyrgos’s conversion meant an 8 point gap was too great for them to close.

Leinster are missing several key players at the moment and that probably helped Glasgow. Carberry looks like he will be a quality 10 for example, but any team missing the game management and skills of Jonny Sexton is going to be weakened. When you add in the losses of Te’o and Madigan and no Henshaw or Nacewa, you begin to see that this could have been a very different game but that doesn’t take away from Glasgow. After all, they can only beat the team put in front of them on game day and they have just as many key players out injured at the moment (Strauss, Russell etc.)

From a Warriors perspective, it’s great to see so many players looking sharp and hungry this early on in the season. Peter Horne once again showed that he has the quality and game management to run a match from 10 and that Glasgow can rely on him whenever Finn Russell is unavailable. Tim Swinson has been rock solid and while he could never be compared to Leone Nakarawa, he’s soften the blow of losing the big Fijian by playing out of his skin so far. You then have a man like Simone Favaro at 7 who has absolutely no regard for his own body or safety flying into tackles like his life depended on it and more often than not he hits his target.  

Glasgow will now fly to Cardiff to take on a resurgent Blues side who will be full of confidence following 2 great wins against Edinburgh at home and Munster in Cork. They are far more used to the plastic pitch than Glasgow so it will be interesting to see if they can turn that knowledge into an advantage. They also have a very capable squad and have one of the best back rows in the Pro12 at the moment. Sam Warburton is a fantastic player and when you add someone of Nick Williams stature alongside Naivdi then you’re going to get fireworks more often than not.

Sadly, unless you’re at the game you’re not going to be able to see it anywhere as none of the Pro12 broadcasters have taken up the option of this match. So two of the best sides in the league so far will face off and we’re all going to miss it I’m afraid. Let’s hope that this is something that doesn’t happen too often.

Follow The Pen on twitter here and for more blog posts you can catch him here.