Rampant Glasgow outclass Edinburgh in 1872 Cup first leg

Media caption,

Highlights: Rampant Glasgow Warriors beat Edinburgh

United Rugby Championship/1872 Cup first leg

Glasgow Warriors (21) 33

Tries: Matthews (2), H Jones, Steyn, Dobie Con: G Horne (4)

Edinburgh (0) 14

Tries: Venter (2) Con: Healy (2)

Rampant Glasgow won the first leg of the 1872 Cup in a five-tries-to-two canter against outclassed Edinburgh at Hampden Park.

In their home from home, the Warriors turned it on and blew away their hapless visitors in front of more than 27,000 fans.

Huw Jones scored either side of a Johnny Matthews double in a first half that ended 21-0.

Edinburgh's nightmare opening spell also featured yellow cards for Pierre Schoeman and Marshall Sykes.

Kyle Steyn and Jamie Dobie added two more tries in the second half. At 33-0, Boan Venter piled over for two consolation tries that really were no consolation at all.

Edinburgh's humiliation was in major part down to Glasgow's ruthless accuracy and in other part down to their own wretched discipline. When you concede 10 penalties and get two yellows in one half against the URC champions, then you get what you deserve.

Glasgow were streets ahead. They were missing a long list of stellar names, but it didn't matter. Franco Smith's team had dynamism, speed, intelligence, muscle and class.

Edinburgh, meanwhile, had the look of men who spent their day being spun around in a darkened room.

The rout began early when, after a couple of shots from close-range scrums and line-outs, Glasgow nailed their maul and over went Matthews.

Glasgow were sharp, skilful and dangerous. Edinburgh were plodding, predictable and riddled with ill-discipline. Schoeman saw yellow for a ridiculous shoulder to the head of Gregor Brown at a breakdown.

Brown, a big influence, was facing the other way and Glasgow had already secured ball, which made Schoeman's act all the more daft. He was somewhat fortunate not to get red.

Edinburgh suffered while he was away. Jones' try was wonderfully created, a lovely mixture of backs and forwards offloading and powering on, making one good decision after another at pace.

Jones was involved with a one-handed offload. Ally Miller was in there, then Tom Jordan darted away and found Jones on his shoulder. Gorgeous. Just as he had done before, Horne banged over the conversion.

Schoeman returned but Glasgow were as devastating against 15 as they had been against 14. Another Edinburgh penalty, another Glasgow line-out maul, another try for Matthews.

Not long ago, Cristiano Ronaldo couldn't score at Hampden in 90 minutes. The big Scouser now had two in half an hour. Horne fired over a third conversion and it was 21-0. And then it was 15 versus 14 again.

Image source, SNS
Image caption,

Glasgow's Johnny Matthews achieved what Cristiano Ronaldo could not - scoring at Hampden

Edinburgh were painful to watch, a team with little direction and no discernible signs of having a clue how to deal with Glasgow's physicality and variety.

Sykes got binned for reaching out and taking Kyle Rowe high, presumably because he feared what might happen had he not made a despairing attempt to stop the full-back.

They survived until the break - the penalty count was 10-3 at half-time - but Glasgow took only a few minutes of the new half to score again. Once more, it was clinical.

Horne put Seb Cancelliere away, the wing then finding the raging bull Matthews on his shoulder. Matthews took it deep into Edinburgh country.

They pulled the trigger from there, moving left with Sione Tuipulotu firing it out to Steyn, who touched down on his comeback after injury.

Dobie, thanks to a bullocking burst from Scott Cummings and woeful defence from Edinburgh, scored Glasgow's fifth. The near-flawless Horne made it 33-0 with the boot.

Venter finally got Edinburgh on the scoreboard late on, and later still Glasgow tighthead Patrick Schickerling got binned. The home team had downed tools at this point and Venter scored again before the end.

None of it mattered. Glasgow won with the kind of ease that will have pleased even the hard-to-please Smith while simultaneously frightening his counterpart Sean Everitt before round two next Saturday at Murrayfield.

What they said

Winning Glasgow head coach Franco Smith told Premier Sports: "To see 28,000 supporters is fantastic. To have a performance like that was special.

"If we concentrate only on the fans, we'd have been carried away. We stuck to the process and plan, and scoring nice tries is always welcome. It was mostly about just being us and playing the best we can."

Edinburgh head coach Sean Everitt told Premier Sports: "We've got ourselves to blame for the predicament we got ourselves into.

"We were ill disciplined in the first half to say the least - conceded 10 penalties and two yellow cards against a team that are the best finishers in the URC.

"I know the players are hurting in the changing room but there's no one to blame but ourselves."

Glasgow Warriors: Rowe; Cancelliere, Jones, S Tuipulotu, Steyn (c); Jordan, Horne; Bhatti, Matthews, Z Fagerson, Brown, Cummings, Miller, M Fagerson, Mann.

Replacements: Hiddleston, Sutherland, Schickerling, Samuel, Stewart, Fraser, Dobie, Weir.

Edinburgh: Goosen; Graham, Currie, M Tuipulotu, Van der Merwe; Thompson, Price; Schoeman, Ashman, Rae, Sykes, Gilchrist, Ritchie, Crosbie, Bradbury.

Replacements: Cherry, Venter, Sebastian, Skinner, Muncaster, Vellacott, Healy, Lang.