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Huw Jones injury mars Glasgow win over Connacht

By PA
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - APRIL 22: Warriors' Huw Jones goes down injured during a BKT United Rugby Championship match between Glasgow Warriors and Connacht at Scotstoun Stadium, on April 22, 2023, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Rob Casey/SNS Group via Getty Images)

Glasgow Warriors were pushed to the wire by Connacht before claiming a 29-27 win at their Scotstoun fortress which sets them up nicely for the crunch part of their season.

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The double-chasing Warriors, who are now unbeaten in 17 successive home matches, will hope to carry their momentum into next week’s Challenge Cup semi-final away to Scarlets and then their home United Rugby Championship play-off quarter-final against Munster.

Glasgow were already of fourth place in the URC and started the match like they did not have a care in the world.

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They fired through several slick phases straight from kick-off, with Huw Jones and Stafford McDowall making good headway with powerful midfield bursts.

Then Rory Darge appeared on the scene to send Jones over for the game’s opening try with neat back-handed offload.

Connacht – who needed a win to claim a place in the Champions Cup next season – bounced back immediately by forcing Jones to carry the ball back over his own line, and then pressurising the home scrum into conceding a penalty try.

Warriors’ scrum continued to struggle, but their play around the park was razor sharp, and they raced back into the lead in the 18th minute when Tom Jordan juggled the ball before streaking under the posts.

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The home side lost Scott Cummings to the sin-bin for an obstruction on Caolin Blade and Jack Carty kicked the three easy points for the visitors.

Connacht worked hard to take advantage of the extra man and were rewarded with the lead when number eight Cian Prendergast burrowed over from a tap penalty, with Carty adding the extras.

Warriors did not panic however, and they struck back before Cummings had returned to the fray with Ali Price finishing off on the left after some sharp link play.

Cole Forbes thought he had scored try number three for Glasgow – who led 19-17 at the break – after Jordan and Jones capitalised on turnover ball, but the latter had knocked-on whilst being tackled and so it was chalked off.

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There was no more scoring until the hour mark, when replacement Glasgow hooker Johnny Matthews went over at the back of a line-out maul and George Horne added the touchline conversion to make 26-17.

Connacht would not lie down though, and after Horne and Carty had exchanged penalties, a Shamus Hurley-Langton try converted by Carty made for a tense final five minutes – but Warriors held on.

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fl 1 hour ago
‘Props are awesome…so why don’t they win prizes?’

“The reason most props don’t last the whole game is that they expend proportionally more effort than players outside the front row. Should they be penalised for that?”

No, they don’t last the whole game because they are less fit than players outside the front row. I’d be interested to know if you’d apply this logic to other positions; do PSDT and Itoje regularly last longer than other players in their positions because they put in less effort?

None of this is about “penalising” props, its about being realistic about their impact on a game.


“While scrums are a small part of the game in terms of time spent in them, they have disproportionate impact. Dominant scrums win games; feeble ones lose them.”

Strength at the breakdown wins games. Good kicking wins games. Good handling wins games. Strong defence wins games. Good lineouts win games. Ultimately, I think that of all these things, the scrum is probably the least important, because it demonstrably doesn’t correlate very well with winning games. I don’t think Rugbypass will allow me to link articles, but if you google “HG Rugby Crowning the Best Scrum in Club Rugby” you’ll get a pretty convincing analysis that ranks Toulouse and Bordeaux outside of the 10 best club sides in the scrum - and ranks Leinster outside of the top 30.


“Or there’s Joe Marler’s epic performance in the Bristol v Quins 2021 Premiership Semi-Final, in which he finally left the pitch 15 minutes into extra time having signed off with a try saving tackle.”

Yeah - that’s a good example actually, but it kind of disproves your point. Marler played 95 minutes, which is unheard of for a prop.


“Maybe we need a dedicated Hall of Fame with entry only for props, and voted for only by props.”

Well we have the World Rugby XV of the year. Its only been going for a few years, but in time it’ll be a pretty good record of who are perceived as best props - although the lack of interest most people have in scrums means that perception of who the best props are doesn’t always match reality (e.g. Tadgh Furlong was great in 2018 - but was he really the best tighthead in the world in 2021, 2022, & 2023?).

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