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Mass effect - How Glasgow are muscling up

By Jamie Lyall
Zander Fagerson celebrates with Glasgow Warriors pack (Photo by Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)

Last season, as the Pro14 reached its climax, a blueprint for beating Glasgow Warriors became brutally evident.

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Bludgeon them up front. Maul them into oblivion. Harry their flair players into forcing things and coughing up the ball. Leinster showed the way to conquer Glasgow with the most bruising Champions Cup beating in October, and gradually, others followed suit.

This Warriors team had so much panache. So much brilliance. An embarrassment of attacking riches, scores of top-class half-backs and centres, mobile forwards and rapier outside backs who could hurt you from anywhere. They bamboozled teams with the searing speed of their off-loading game rather than crippling them with the brawn of their heavy artillery.

Did they have the heft or the snarl to hold up to the sternest physical examinations?

“In the last quarter of the season, teams worked us out,” Scotland hooker Fraser Brown told BBC Scotland last month.

“They attacked us up front all season, but by the end they were really going for the throat and our deficiencies were exposed. We can’t hide from that.”

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Warriors’ attack fizzed under Gregor Townsend and they upped the tempo even more in Dave Rennie’s first season in charge. They scored a heap of truly mesmeric tries; coast-to-coast stunners have become staple fare at Scotstoun.

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The problem of playing with such abandon is that the risk of turning the ball over grows. Too often, Glasgow gave it some air without first summoning the bruisers to punch a hole or two. Rennie, even in victory, would warn of the perils of “going around teams before we go through them”.

If you turn the ball over frequently, as Glasgow did, you have to defend more. And the more you defend, the more likely you are to concede points. Barring one tremendous win over Exeter Chiefs, Glasgow’s European campaign was a damp squib. After cantering to the top of Pro14 Conference A with rounds to spare, their semi-final loss to Scarlets ended the season on a bitterly anticlimactic note.

The challenge is there for Warriors this year – when the heat is on in the league and in Europe, when the behemoths of England and France come calling and the Irish provinces unleash their stars, can Glasgow handle it?

On the face of it, they will attempt to do so with essentially the same pack as last year. Only academy prospects, hooker Kevin Bryce and American international back-row Tevita Tameilau have been added to the existing pool of forwards and that has left plenty fans getting antsy.

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Where is all the beef? Well, Glasgow do have muscle – the problem was that last season, an awful lot of it was on the treatment table.

Oli Kebble, Brian Alainu’uese, Adam Ashe, Greg Peterson. All monstrous specimens; all out for swathes of the campaign. Back-row Ashe managed 10 starts, the others just eight combined.

A resurgent Ashe could be the most important of the lot. Glasgow let Josh Strauss go last summer and never replaced his awesome ballast from number eight. Few can match Strauss’ ability to splinter the gain-line but Ashe gives you grunt while contributing amply to the open-field havoc Warriors are wont to wreak.

Alainu’uese and Peterson are enormous lumberers close to seven feet tall in their rugby boots, both around the 130kg mark. The perfect enforcer-style engine-room foil for Jonny Gray, Scott Cummings or Tim Swinson, all of whom excel when galloping around the paddock. Glasgow will have to wait for New Zealander Alainu’uese to return from a back injury, while Peterson, an American international, has fallen behind Gray, Cummings and Rob Harley in the pecking order.

Already, Glasgow’s scrummage looks nastier with Kebble in the front-row, particularly alongside Scotland’s Brown and Zander Fagerson. The big loosehead arrived from the Stormers last year but injuries restricted him to a measly two starts.

The signs so far about Glasgow’s physical menace are mixed. Warriors took a battering from Northampton Saints in a pre-season friendly that bore many of the hallmarks of last season’s failings. But they’re two from two in the serious stuff.

Their first Pro14 win was a crazy one-point victory at Connacht where their scrum was formidable and they overturned a nine-point deficit despite losing Adam Hastings to a sin-bin. Their second was more impressive, a rousing 25-10 triumph over Munster in which their set-piece was dominant and their defence resolute.

In typically deadpan style, Rennie took aim at some critics after the win.

“Again, the big men set the platform for us,” he said on BBC Radio Scotland.

“For some reason, we get criticised a bit around our set-piece. But as we showed again this week, a dominant scrum and an excellent line-out maul which netted us a few points.”

Glasgow know all too well where they faltered last year. They know too what people think of their pack and it irks them. They have a long way to go to shut the doubters up for good but they are starting to show signs that their rugby can be brutal as well as beautiful.

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Adrian 37 minutes ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

6 Go to comments
T
Trevor 3 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

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B
Bull Shark 7 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

Of the rugby I’ve born witness to in my lifetime - 1990 to date - I recognize great players throughout those years. But I have no doubt the game and the players are on average better today. So I doubt going back further is going to prove me wrong. The technical components of the game, set pieces, scrums, kicks, kicks at goal. And in general tactics employed are far more efficient, accurate and polished. Professional athletes that have invested countless hours on being accurate. There is one nation though that may be fairly competitive in any era - and that for me is the all blacks. And New Zealand players in general. NZ produces startling athletes who have fantastic ball skills. And then the odd phenomenon like Brooke. Lomu. Mcaw. Carter. Better than comparing players and teams across eras - I’ve often had this thought - that it would be very interesting to have a version of the game that is closer to its original form. What would the game look like today if the rules were rolled back. Not rules that promote safety obviously - but rules like: - a try being worth 1 point and conversion 2 points. Hence the term “try”. Earning a try at goals. Would we see more attacking play? - no lifting in the lineouts. - rucks and break down laws in general. They looked like wrestling matches in bygone eras. I wonder what a game applying 1995 rules would look like with modern players. It may be a daft exercise, but it would make for an interesting spectacle celebrating “purer” forms of the game that roll back the rules dramatically by a few versions. Would we come to learn that some of the rules/combinations of the rules we see today have actually made the game less attractive? I’d love to see an exhibition match like that.

29 Go to comments
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