Glasgow have been on a pretty impressive run in the URC over the last few months. They are third in the log – a point ahead of Leinster and two ahead of Munster – and their last day out saw them put away an ailing Connacht side in the Sportsground with a pretty emphatic scoreline and performance. They also hold a pretty impressive win over Exeter in the Champions Cup but lost the other three fixtures at varying degrees of severity.
For Munster, the key to this upcoming tangle in Scoutstoun is assessing the quality of what Glasgow look like during the Six Nations window and, on a grander scale, assessing the quality of their season so far. Yes, Glasgow are third, but what has their schedule been like?
Glasgow’s wins in the URC this season have been;
- Sharks
- Lions
- Zebre
- Dragons
- Ospreys
- Connacht
66% of Glasgow’s six wins during this season’s URC to date have come against sides who, when you combine their records together, have lost 75% of their games. Their best win this season in the URC was, in my opinion, against a pretty strong Ospreys last month. So while you might argue that most of Glasgow’s wins have been against Shield basement dwellers and that they’ve only really beaten a full-strength Ospreys side in the league this year, that doesn’t tell the full story either.
When they lost to Leinster in Scotstoun back in October, for example, that was against a Leinster side stacked with guys like Furlong, Healy, Kelleher, Doris, Leavy, Conan, Ringrose, Lowe, Keenan, Sheehan, Ala’alatoa, Gibson-Park and Ruddock. Sure, they were missing Sexton, Henshaw, Porter and Ryan but that Leinster side wouldn’t look out of place for a big InterPro. Glasgow lost, sure, but you’d expect that given Leinster selected way stronger than Glasgow did for that game, which is somewhat of a rarity in the old PRO14 but a reality in the new United Rugby Championship. So where are Glasgow, really? I guess we’ll see in this game.
With Edinburgh providing the bulk of Gregor Townsend’s squad at the moment, Glasgow find themselves reduced in some areas but with a generally stronger selection than you’d expect during a test window for this game. Guys like Wilson, Gray, Brown and Berghan are arguably past their peak as players but that’s the exact type of guy that becomes incrementally more valuable in test window games like these.
We’ve gone about as strong as we can minus our internationals and a few injuries, which are starting to pile up a little now mid-way through the season.
We were originally due to play this fixture on the last day of the season but with the jigs and the reels of covid rescheduling, we’re doing it this week and, in context, it’s become a very difficult game. Munster and Leinster are the only two sides in the top eight with two games in hand so a win here would go a long way to nailing down a solid top-four spot as we head into the end-game of the regular season. A loss isn’t a critical blow by any means but we know that two regular wins in the next two weeks would see us tracking in the top two of the log with a difficult trip to South Africa on the horizon in March.
Glasgow Warriors: 15. Ollie Smith, 14. Sebastian Cancelliere, 13. Robbie Fergusson, 12. Sam Johnson, 11. Rufus McClean, 10. Duncan Weir, 9. George Horne; 1. Oli Kebble, 2. Fraser Brown (C), 3. Simon Berghan, 4. Scott Cummings, 5. Richie Gray, 6. Ryan Wilson, 7. Thomas Gordon, 8. Jack Dempsey
Replacements: 16. Johnny Matthews, 17. Nathan McBeth, 18. Enrique Pierietto, 19. Kiran McDonald, 20. Ally Millar, 21. Jamie Dobie, 22. Domingo Miotti, 23. Stafford McDowall
I was wondering during the week about the best way to take on this Glasgow side at this stage of the season with the squad Munster had available this week.
Do you play off-ball or on-ball?
That might sound reductive but on relatively short notice, how do you scheme to play a Glasgow side in the attacking form they’ve been in? They have the second-most tries to date, generate linebreaks constantly and offload out of the tackle close better than almost everyone in the tournament.
I think it comes down to the guys you have available and when I see Chris Cloete selected for this game when you could have literally selected any other combination in the back row of the guys we had available, I see Munster making a plan to play mostly off-ball against Glasgow.
What does that mean? It means that we will voluntarily surrender possession most of the time with the idea being that we stress Glasgow’s ruck recycle to win slow the gap between phases, which allows for the possibility of turnover tackles or handling errors on the next phase or, ideally, you’ll win clean breakdown turnovers or penalties. To play this style effectively, you need poachers – in Chris Cloete, we have the best jackal in the league with two more waiting to come off the bench – and a strong, dominant scrum.
Why? I think we’re intending to kick long and then stress Glasgow at the breakdown on the first few phases post-transition. Connacht didn’t really compete in any meaningful way at the breakdown consistently against Glasgow and ran into the same issues that Wales did against Ireland.
Glasgow are a quick ball team so if you can slow them down on successive phases they become way easier to defend – and more prone to handling errors, hence the need of a penalty generating scrum – but you will almost always get Glasgow to kick the ball back after two slow rucks in a row.
It isn’t about chasing every single ruck, it’s about ensuring you get a stop and a slow in the collision in the first place to bring that recycle speed down. When you stop them enough on that second ruck post-transition, then you can see about getting Cloete – and others – in when Glasgow overcommit on the third ruck to generate a bit of momentum.
We’ll need to challenge them with the ball in hand too – and from deep – but I think mixing up the early and mid-game with a long kicking game that stresses their offensive cleanout and, as a secondary target, loosens up their front five for some heavy scrummaging. Ideally, we want John Ryan giving the 6’3″/118KG Nathan McBeth a scrummaging examination relatively early in the second half to produce the kind of go-forward and, ideally, penalties that we can begin building our radiating maul patterns off.
From a Munster perspective, I think playing off-ball in the early going will produce some good launch opportunities, especially if Healy can find his range off the tee and out of hand. Healy’s range as a relief kicker will be a good way to bring Shane Daly’s aggressive transition defence into the game.
If our primary breakdown defence works as I think it might, it’ll produce transition opportunities for the likes of Haley, Daly, Farrell and Simon Zebo, who is a dangerous guy to have in any backfield.
