Glasgow v Edinburgh 22nd

[The Chiel]

The reaction was indeed decent. Well done to the pack - and to be fair the backs defensively.

But the issue of the midfields complete inability to produce and execute a planned move is still there. Tuipolotu jr and Currie run hard and well but just don't look like stepping a man or producing an overlap. I still think they may be too similar. Several times DVDM lined up behind the backs and came across from his wing, but didn't get the ball more than once or twice. I've criticised him in the past for not getting involved, but he at least was showing ( Darcy always does ).

Everett's coat is definitely still on a shoogly peg - but Mathie, the ( relatively ) new attack coach, either simply can't hack it or is being stopped from doing his job.

[bignose]

Tuipolotu jr and Currie run hard and well but just don't look like stepping a man or producing an overlap. I still think they may be too similar. Several times DVDM lined up behind the backs and came across from his wing, but didn't get the ball more than once or twice. I've criticised him in the past for not getting involved, but he at least was showing ( Darcy always does ).

Tuipolotu runs some nice lines and has decent feet, but he's getting the ball so far away from the defence that he's starting from scratch each time. They must also train on some kind of diagonal pitch, given how many times we ended up with players heading more towards the outside touchline than the try line.

Having slept on it, I'm still angry that a professional team can appear to be that badly coached.

[dolf_lundgren]

It was a decent performance and certainly there can be no questions about commitment and intensity this week.

Totally agree on the backs attacking though, we sit so deep and are very slow to move the ball. Twice before half time Thompson went to pass the ball saw a defender in the lane and just fired it to the nearest person. I like Thompson but Glasgow went after him and his confidence looks really low.

Interesting comments from Mosese that the weeks training was driven by Gilcho and Ritchie. That’s what we want to hear really that the senior players are stepping up. But they still need the coaches to do better in attacking style and patterns, we seemed to take an age to make decisions.

I like the centres and I think they will come good. But we have to find a way of getting them quick ball on the front foot. Mosese wasn’t happy about being taken off, but I thought Lang really upped the energy and talking in defence. The right sub at the right time.

No idea what the possession and territory stats are but it felt like we had the bulk of both and should have been out of sight by half time.

Quite. Few injuries, hopefully none too serious.

[The Feral Goat]

For me the fundamental issue is the speed of the ball away from the breakdown through 9 and 10.

Does not matter who is outside a nonu odriscoll partnership would struggle with the SteveWalsh we are throwing out with defenders on top of them.

Price, to my eyes, arrives late the ball is often presented and available he then stops and looks at options. Surely he should be looking at the options as he approaches and knows the pass/kick he wants to make. Fair enough in own 22 a structured exit etc but in attack play heads up rugby and get the ball moving.

At one he point took 2or3 steps before firing a pass by which time the defence had easily closed the gap and caught us 5m behind the gain line.

Thompson sits deep, so again we end up further and further behind the gain line, which unless the midfield can make a break we end up resetting. Against a quality midfield of Jordan, sione and jones, moseses and Currie were always up against it in attack. With proper quick flat ball I think they would look very different.

If the slow play is the game plan and coached then everitt and co should quit rugby.

The win keeps our season alive, but that level of physicality and defensive effort has to be minimum every match then against lesser teams than Glasgow we will get quicker ball and more opportunities, attack can only get better...surely.

40000 is a great crowd but how many do you convert to more regular fans serving up pish like that! When the few loyal posters on here are considering if they return to watch that is surely a sign change is needed irrespective of the win.

[liveinhope]

Absolutely agree with all of that!

[The Feral Goat]

Watched game back on TV.

Attack still LawrenceBryce SteveWalsh.

BUT defence was really good, properly shut Glasgow down.

Skinner I thought very good.

Lang played well when he came on.

Schoe a man possessed when he came on.

Healys kicking was top drawer conversion and from hand, stood flatter...is there a good 10 there off quick ball and can we get it to him?

Can we be consistent with that intensity?

[bignose]

There have been a couple of comments in this thread saying that the defence was "really good". I beg to differ.

I didn't watch the first leg, and after seeing the score and reading the reports I chose not to so as to not further damage my mental health. Maybe if we are judging against that performance, then we've set a baseline that allows us to get all excited about things, but let's not kid ourselves that the Weegie attack was anything stellar. We still managed to concede 40+ metres from first-phase after scrums on at least 2 separate occasions. Fortunately, both of those were from the Glasgow five metre line, so no scores resulted, but that was the most passive defence I've seen in many, many years.

If you want to see an outstanding defensive performance, I recommend watching Sale comprehensively shut down the Bristol attack (Friday 27th). It's not been a great season for Sale away from home until that point, but Byron McGuigan seems to have found something there now.

[joe soap]

There have been a couple of comments in this thread saying that the defence was "really good". I beg to differ.

I didn't watch the first leg, and after seeing the score and reading the reports I chose not to so as to not further damage my mental health. Maybe if we are judging against that performance, then we've set a baseline that allows us to get all excited about things, but let's not kid ourselves that the Weegie attack was anything stellar. We still managed to concede 40+ metres from first-phase after scrums on at least 2 separate occasions. Fortunately, both of those were from the Glasgow five metre line, so no scores resulted, but that was the most passive defence I've seen in many, many years.

If you want to see an outstanding defensive performance, I recommend watching Sale comprehensively shut down the Bristol attack (Friday 27th). It's not been a great season for Sale away from home until that point, but Byron McGuigan seems to have found something there now.

But Bristol's much vaunted run from everywhere attack was hardly stellar either. In both games mainly because the defence shut them down, did not allow them to play.
Sale defence has been improving since McGuigan took over. Edinburgh produced what is so far a one off big performance, defence otherwise has been "average". The issue is to repeat that standard - and to improve the attack, which is still just a load of talented players and no structure or plan

[doedin]

There have been a couple of comments in this thread saying that the defence was "really good". I beg to differ.

I didn't watch the first leg, and after seeing the score and reading the reports I chose not to so as to not further damage my mental health. Maybe if we are judging against that performance, then we've set a baseline that allows us to get all excited about things, but let's not kid ourselves that the Weegie attack was anything stellar. We still managed to concede 40+ metres from first-phase after scrums on at least 2 separate occasions. Fortunately, both of those were from the Glasgow five metre line, so no scores resulted, but that was the most passive defence I've seen in many, many years.

If you want to see an outstanding defensive performance, I recommend watching Sale comprehensively shut down the Bristol attack (Friday 27th). It's not been a great season for Sale away from home until that point, but Byron McGuigan seems to have found something there now.

But Bristol's much vaunted run from everywhere attack was hardly stellar either. In both games mainly because the defence shut them down, did not allow them to play.
Sale defence has been improving since McGuigan took over. Edinburgh produced what is so far a one off big performance, defence otherwise has been "average". The issue is to repeat that standard - and to improve the attack, which is still just a load of talented players and no structure or plan

Embra game plan was dead simple - park the bus, stop the Weegies playing and then hope to pick up some penalties to win the game. It worked. Focusing almost entirely on defence meant that Price and Thompson played a very limited game, slow the game down, line up across the park, dont commit too heavily to rucks or kick chases, kick deep to avoid playing in own half and defend in numbers out wide to force their attack back inside. Embra weren't interested in attack, Prices delivery was deliberately slow to allow defence to be in place and Thompson sat very deep the whole game - our backs had very few attacking opportunities. We were there to stop Glasgow scoring, if we scored it would be opportunistic. Given we have a team full of internationalists then it would be surprising if we couldn't defend as we did, given we had zero intention of attacking. It was an awful game to watch and if that is the limit of Everett's ambition for the team then I will just watch videos of SA teams from 20 years ago who did it better.

[bignose]

But Bristol's much vaunted run from everywhere attack was hardly stellar either. In both games mainly because the defence shut them down, did not allow them to play.
Sale defence has been improving since McGuigan took over. Edinburgh produced what is so far a one off big performance, defence otherwise has been "average". The issue is to repeat that standard - and to improve the attack, which is still just a load of talented players and no structure or plan

I still beg to differ. Bristol struggled because Sale were incredibly well-organised, hugely committed, and pressured Bristol into playing a way that they did not want to. Glasgow were just poor in attack which made the passive Edinburgh defence look much better than it actually was. I think that Glasgow probably got themselves sucked into the hype of the 1872 such that their mindset was to not lose on aggregate - or at least that's how it felt to me from the stands. Edinburgh attack is - as we all agree - missing in action, but the defence is not that much better.