'It’s certainly an area that we need to brush up on'

Franco Smith praised his Glasgow players for emerging from the draining emotion of the festive period by winning the 1872 Cup for a fourth year in a row.

Warriors had won the first leg 24-12 at Hampden the previous weekend and built on that lead by scoring three times at Murrayfield to claim a 21-3 win, lifting the trophy 45-15 on aggregate.

Smith felt Edinburgh had again defended well to restrict Glasgow’s attacking prowess but believed his players had dug deep to seal a first Murrayfield victory for three years.

The Glasgow head coach said: “It was not our easiest night out there, let’s put it that way. I thought Edinburgh stepped up again: they’re at home, they’re a proud team, which I think Scotland must be proud of as well.

“But in the end, I’m really, really proud that we stuck to the plan and got it done.

“It’s a difficult period in this part of the season because emotion plays a big role. With Christmas and everybody seeing family and enjoying the day with family, sometimes you get drained in this period from emotion.”

It was Edinburgh who got on the board first through a Cammy Scott penalty for their only points of the match.

That early action, however, failed to last as both teams were drawn into an attritional contest of little quality.

It took until the 31st minute before the first try. Adam Hastings picked out Jamie Dobie with a perfect kick-pass to the left flank that the winger gathered before crossing the line. Hastings converted.

Glasgow briefly went down to 14 men at the start of the second half. Back-rower Angus Fraser was adjudged to have gone in on high on Scott and was shown the yellow card by referee Hollie Davidson.

Edinburgh tried to take immediate advantage of the extra man but Glasgow did well to stop their line-out maul and win a penalty.

The game – if not the destination of the trophy – was still in the balance heading into the closing five minutes but Warriors made sure of the victory with a second try five minutes from time.

George Horne claimed and converted it after Glasgow’s forwards had battered away at the Edinburgh line before the scrum-half sniped over.

A few minutes later Dobie had Glasgow’s third try, racing onto his own kick down the line to dot down for a try converted by Dan Lancaster.

It was a third successive defeat for Edinburgh and head coach Sean Everitt admitted his team had made too many errors.

He said: “Our line-out was put under pressure in the second half particularly, and we couldn’t really get gain line from there. So it was a tough day at the office from that point of view.

“It was a four-point game after 71 minutes and then another error on attack, on set-piece attack.

“But it seems to be the story of the two games that we’ve had so it’s certainly an area that we need to brush up on.”