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Ex-South African U20s star helps Glasgow close gap on Munster

By Online Editors
Brandon Thomson

Glasgow secured a bonus-point win against PRO14 rivals Connacht to move to within a point of leaders Munster.

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Connacht came into the game immediately behind second-placed Glasgow in Conference A, but the hosts effectively won the game in the first half.

They opened the scoring in the first minute with a try from scrum-half George Horne and then closed strongly, with tries in the 32nd and 38th minutes, set up by forward drives and registered by Tim Swinson and Grant Stewart.

A second try from Stewart after 45 minutes got the try bonus point. However, Glasgow then let Connacht into the game to add tries through Paul Boyle and Tom Daly, the latter converted by Kyle Godwin, to Stephen Fitzgerald’s first-half effort.

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Glasgow did add a late brace of tries through Robbie Nairn and standoff Brandon Thomson converted every kick bar the last.

Warriors secured Connacht’s kick-off and within 45 seconds had scored their first try.

Winger Kyle Steyn did the damage with top try scorer scrumhalf George Horne taking his season’s total to seven.

A long break by visitors scrumhalf Kieran Marmion, making his 150th appearance, led to huge pressure on the home line that was resisted and a break by Steyn led to a penalty slotted by Thomson.

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After 22 minutes Connacht pulled a try back, cleverly scored by right winger Fitzgerald but his standoff brother Conor, up from the academy for the night, missed the conversion.

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Play having been loose, Glasgow took control for the rest of the half to build up a 24-5 lead at the break.

Successive penalties allowed Warriors to get into opposition territory where Horne dodged to the line and, in the following surge, Swinson scored.

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With two minutes of the half left, Glasgow got over from a lineout drive, with hooker Grant Stewart touching down and Connacht lock James Cannon picking up a yellow card.

Thomson put over both conversions and the half ended with a missed penalty by Conor Fitzgerald.

Five minutes after the restart Glasgow had the try bonus. Again there was the line out drive from which dynamic hooker Grant Stewart broke away for a thrilling score, converted by Thomson.

Connacht then monopolised possession and pressed continually in the Glasgow half. Godwin dropped the ball over the goal line and the home side resisted until, after 63 minutes, substitute Paul Boyle succeeded in scoring an unconverted try which was soon followed by Tom Daly.

Glasgow substitute Robbie Nairn added two tries to put the gloss on the scoreline.

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Flankly 10 hours ago
The AI advantage: How the next two Rugby World Cups will be won

If rugby wants to remain interesting in the AI era then it will need to work on changing the rules. AI will reduce the tactical advantage of smart game plans, will neutralize primary attacking weapons, and will move rugby from a being a game of inches to a game of millimetres. It will be about sheer athleticism and technique,about avoiding mistakes, and about referees. Many fans will find that boring. The answer is to add creative degrees of freedom to the game. The 50-22 is an example. But we can have fun inventing others, like the right to add more players for X minutes per game, or the equivalent of the 2-point conversion in American football, the ability to call a 12-player scrum, etc. Not saying these are great ideas, but making the point that the more of these alternatives you allow, the less AI will be able to lock down high-probability strategies. This is not because AI does not have the compute power, but because it has more choices and has less data, or less-specific data. That will take time and debate, but big, positive and immediate impact could be in the area of ref/TMO assistance. The technology is easily good enough today to detect forward passes, not-straight lineouts, offside at breakdown/scrum/lineout, obstruction, early/late tackles, and a lot of other things. WR should be ultra aggressive in doing this, as it will really help in an area in which the game is really struggling. In the long run there needs to be substantial creativity applied to the rules. Without that AI (along with all of the pro innovations) will turn rugby into a bash fest.

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