Jonny Gray leads monster defensive effort

More often then not, when nine tries are scored in a match you can expect there to be some fairly unimpressive defensive efforts on display.

When Glasgow triumphed over Leinster at the RDS Arena in the latest round of PRO14 action, however, fans were lucky enough to bare witness to some monster defence to complement the great attacking displays.

Glasgow finished the match with five tries to Leinster’s four, but they also made an outrageous 278 tackles out of their 307 attempts.

Seven of Glasgow’s starting forwards made over 24 tackles with Chris Fusaro the sole player who failed to reach those heights, and only because he was substituted in the first five minutes with an injury. His replacement, Adam Ashe, notched up 27 tackles in his absence.

Leading the charge was Scotland international Jonny Gray, nailing all 41 of his tackle attempts.

Gray has been particularly reliable for the Warriors in their recent outings, completing all 19 of his tackle attempts against Ulster last weekend and making 16 tackles off the bench in the loss to the Saracens in the Warriors’ unsuccessful Champions Cup quarterfinal fixture.

Leinster players, although making a comparably paltry 113 tackles in yesterday’s game, will respect Glasgow’s resilience on defence – Leinster had to make 270 tackles of their own in their match the previous week with Benetton. In fact, it’s the third match in a row that Leinster have played where a collective 400 tackles have been attempted between both teams.

While there’s no question that fans love to see free-running plays with  excellent tries being scored, games are infinitely better when also coupled with monstrous defensive efforts.

In Glasgow’s next PRO14 fixture they’ll be up against Scottish rivals Edinburgh – who can still steal a place in the finals with a victory. Leinster will be facing off with fellow Irish team Ulster in a couple of weeks but first have a Champions Cup semifinal against Toulouse to look forward to.