Glasgow 28 Munster 25

A Loss That Should Have Been A Win

This one hurt looking back at it. Time and again, moment after moment, you could see the inaccuracies and dips in composure that cost us the win.

Quality of Opposition

Match Importance

Performance

Attack

Defence

Set Piece

3.4

Disappointing

We came up a little short with the rent on Friday night, but our story was so convincing that we lived to fight another round or two at least.

By Saturday night, results elsewhere turned what could have been a nightmare weekend into just an under-par one. We could have finished the weekend outside the top eight – and without our losing bonus point, we would have regardless – but Connacht and Edinburgh losing is the difference between sixth place and twelfth. The mosh pit has a lot more flying elbows this season than usual.

It’s at the point of the season where you aren’t just looking at your game in the next round, you’re also trying to project the rounds after that. Who has already got their South African tour out of the way? Connacht, Ospreys, Cardiff. Who is on a Challenge Cup run at the same time that might shift priorities? Connacht, who we play next week, or Cardiff who we play two rounds from now.

Will Connacht be distracted this week?

Will Cardiff be, if they win and we play them a few weeks later?

Will we be distracted if we beat La Rochelle??

Will the South African sides – all drawn away from home – be arsed showing up in those games in the Challenge Cup?

Does that impact how the Bulls will be when we play them in Thomond Park in mid-April?

Questions, questions, questions.

The only certainty after Friday night is that every single point matters. It remains to be seen just how valuable the one point we earned here will be.

Or just how costly the three we missed out on could be.

For a while, this was looking like the biggest and best regular season result from the club in the last two years. Going to a place like Scotstoun, down 13 players for one reason or another, against a side that outmatched us on paper across the match day squad; that’s an uphill battle. One we should have won.

In truth, we let it slip through our fingers – and not just in the last 15 minutes.

I spoke before the game about how our kicking would have to be pretty accurate all night. The first half was dominated by the wind in our face, so kicking too much there wasn’t an option. We did really well holding the ball, as it happens.

In the second half, our undoing was through our kicking. There were early warning signs. This blown angled bomb is a good example of one that probably should have ended in seven points for Glasgow.

Positionally, Butler needs to be landing this kick around the 5m tramline, with wiggle room of around 5m infield from that spot. Instead it lands almost in line with where he kicked it – around 15m too far infield.

Now I’m sure the wind behind his back was a factor – go too far towards the touchline and the wind might blow it out on the full – but when it lands this far infield, it creates a transition “vacuum” in the back pin behind the chase line.

Glasgow should and could have scored from it.

Right after we went 11 points up with 14 minutes to play, our focus should have been DISTANCE. Make Glasgow play from deep, slow the game down, boss every five minute block. If we’d have managed to get to 70 minutes with that 11 point lead we win.

Here’s what happened after the restart;

For me, this has to go beyond our 10m line and into touch. Slow the game. Cheese them at the lineout. Pressure them at the set piece.

With this short range contestable, we let Glasgow back within range of our 22 with a referee who had been blowing us off the park for the entire second half. They, of course, got a cheap penalty a few phases later and scored from the resulting lineout platform on a multi-phase sequence, assisted by another cheap penalty.

We kicked off at right as the clock hit 70 minutes with a four point lead to defend. Again, we needed distance. Make them play from deep. We blew a one man lift right off the lineout we got from their exit and they booted the ball downfield. Munster kept the lineout this time but we just couldn’t get the space we needed to exit with the distance we needed.

It’s late in the game, he worked his arse off in defence all night but we need gainline+ from Barron on this loop around. We’re stopped dead behind the gainline and then Coughlan – right footed kicker – hooks the kick just outside the 22.

Eight minutes to go with a ref fully vibing with the home team – dangerous. We managed to turn the ball over but were undone twice.

First, by not kicking this immediately on the catch. Second, by the worst maul-call on a carry you’ll ever see – Gleeson was in contact with the defence for just over two seconds before the referee called a maul turnover.

Scannell was lining up to exit this down the field in the background. I’d like to see how this would have played out without that early maul call, but either way, that gave Glasgow the position to surge again against a tiring Munster tight five. We almost turned the ball over from the resulting scrum – Brian Gleeson was a fingertip away from grabbing the bouncing ball – but once Glasgow had it, they had the power to push forward onto our 5m line and eventually scored a try with a penalty advantage a few moments later.

We coughed up a great opportunity to strike back a few moments later with this blown-out clean by Josh Wycherley; he’s too nice here, too gentle and seems to be waiting for the same referee who gave that maul call a few minutes earlier to blow a lazy roller.

The breakdown was a warzone all night with Glasgow, in particular, throwing multiple poachers and slow rollers on every collision. It gave us opportunities when we got the ball back, but it would have required over-committing to our own rucks and killing our own attacking threat.

We were at our best in this game when we beat Glasgow’s numbers and played around their press. Tom Farrell takes three defenders for a walk in this one – he’s done it all season – and we’re perfectly set up to hurt them on the inside.

This doesn’t happen with numbers buried in rucks. There’s a balance to be struck – and we didn’t quite hit it here – but we’re not far away.

Watching the game back, I was pleased with how physical we looked throughout. We were carrying bigger, hitting harder and had some real pop in defence.

We lost this game because we were unable to keep the Glasgow push that was always going to come in an area of the field where we might have contained it a little better.

Whatever about the refereeing, we controlled where those decisions were made and when you have a lead away from home, you can’t be playing that much of the game inside your own 10m line. When you throw in two or three defensive mistakes against a very good opponent – both Wycherley’s getting caught by Matt Fagerson on a snipe, Andrew Smith getting disconnected from Tom Farrell on their scrum strike play and Paddy Patterson blitzing on nobody for their first try – you end up slipping from a winning position.

It’s maddening to think what having a matchday 23 that we could feasibly use in full here might have given us – Sheahan and Wood are just a little too raw yet for a tight game like this – but this comes back to our ever-present injury crisis too. We saw the impact that Loughman had here, and we’ll see the same when Kleyn and Casey return this week, and more to come in the weeks after.

Whatever happens in the next 12 months, the entire club – players, coaches and S&C – will have to find a way for this injury list to stay in middling single figures for the entirety of next season because, as we’ve seen, it’s very difficult to do get the wins your endeavour deserves with a rehab room looking like A&E on a Bank Holiday Saturday night.