Glasgow Warriors v Munster Rugby, 20 December

                           
Glasgow Warriors v Munster Rugby
20 December 2014
KO: 14:40
Scotstoun Stadium

Live on Sky Sports

Referee: Leighton Hodges (WRU, 45th competition game)
Assistant Referees: Andrew McMenemy, Lloyd Linton (both SRU)
Citing Commissioner: John Montgomery (SRU)
TMO: Jim Yuille (SRU)

A. Teams:

I. Glasgow Warriors

[*]

II. Munster

[*]

B. Form - head to head:

23 Played 23
8 Wins 14
14 Losses 8
1 Draws 1
43 Tries 57
31 Conversions 40
60 Penalties 52
1 Drop Goals 1
460 Points 524
25 Avg. Age 26

C. Form - recent:

16/5/14 - Glasgow Warriors 16 - 15 Munster Rugby

12/4/14 - Munster Rugby 5 - 22 Glasgow Warriors

25/10/13 - Glasgow Warriors 6 - 13 Munster Rugby

Decent warm-up game for Glasgow before the 1872 fixtures.

It'll be close. Which will be very different from the Annual Slaughter of the Effeminates.
The deciding factor may well be how both teams react to their French lessons at the weekend. Glasgow are probably very down at the moment and will need to find some inner fire from somewhere; Big Al to captain and the Coo back? Munster, however played on Sunday and have had to travel back to Limerick and after licking their wounds (no Bru not that kind of metaphor) will have to fly to Glasgow. The extra day's rest could prove crucial.
A win puts Glasgow top and keeps a song in their collective heart: a loss makes the play offs difficult and could precipitate a crisis of confidence. Oh wait we have two unopposed training matches coming up. Ten points there then. And Bru's stones are looking decidedly vulnerable.

I should probably mention at this point that I have mortgaged young Bru's stones as security for a new Audi that I wanted. They'll be round to conduct due diligence on their security soon Ian, so if the doorbell rings, be a sport and answer it.

I agree that this might be a good game to bring the ruck inspector back, as I think Glasgow could do with some leadership just now.

Hopefully Munster rough you up sufficiently so that you only have the energy to score 5 tries against us on the 27th!

Incidentally, I read in the Scotsman this morning that the call to take the penalty late on against Toulouse came from management, and Toony says in hindsight he regrets the decision...

15 – Murchie
14 – Lamont
13 –Vernon
12 – Horne
11 – DTH
10 – Russell
9 – Niko
8 – Strauss
7 – Holmes
6 – Harley
5 – Gray
4 – Nakarawa
3 – Murray
2 –Brown
1 – Reid


16 – Hall
17 – Allan
18 – Welsh
19 – Swinson
20 – Wilson
21 – Pyrgos
22 – Downey
23 – Seymour

Don't like the look of that backline at all

Pretty much Glasgow's 1st choice available pack just now, but the backline is a bit of a mish-mash.

Resting Welsh/Pyrgos/Dunbar//Seymouy/Hogg/Maitland for the Edinburgh games?

Edit - just seen a lot of those players are listed as 'injured'

Adam Ashe (neck), Mark Bennett (leg), Kevin Bryce (shin), Rossouw de Klerk (foot), Alex Dunbar (head), Chris Fusaro (ankle), Stuart Hogg (knee), Lee Jones (ankle), Pat MacArthur (ankle), Murray McConnell (leg), Sean Maitland (leg) and Tom Ryder (neck).

Munster team: Very strong 23.

Munster: Johne Murphy; Andrew Conway, Pat Howard, Denis Hurley, Simon Zebo; JJ Hanrahan, Conor Murray; John Ryan, Kevin O'Byrne, Stephen Archer; Billy Holland, Paul O'Connell; Peter O'Mahony Capt., Sean Dougall, Robin Copeland.

Replacements: Niall Scannell, Eusebio Guinazu, BJ Botha, Donncha O'Callaghan, Dave O'Callaghan, Duncan Williams, Ian Keatley, Felix Jones.

With a Munster team (and what a bench!) like that and a Warriors injury list like that, a win here will be a big boost.

RDW_Scotland wrote:
Incidentally, I read in the Scotsman this morning that the call to take the penalty late on against Toulouse came from management, and Toony says in hindsight he regrets the decision...

That fella is a wise man. Now if he could project his failsafe hindsight into the future, he'd be invincible.

My first thought on reading that was that it was Strauss who should have been making the call. What is the point of having a captain if it is not to make those sorts of decisions?

Disappointed Cusack hasn't been named in the 23, was really hopeful he would came on for the last 20 or so.

VinceWLB wrote:Disappointed Cusack hasn't been named in the 23, was really hopeful he would came on for the last 20 or so.

Maybe Munster not quite the game to bring him back in! We would all like to see him playing again, but absolutely no sense in rushing it. The games are all just to important to take any risks as well. If Glasgow take 12 points from the next three games our season will look very different to us taking 8 or even 4, especially when we are likely to be stripped bear during the next international window.

BigGee wrote:

VinceWLB wrote:Disappointed Cusack hasn't been named in the 23, was really hopeful he would came on for the last 20 or so.

Maybe Munster not quite the game to bring him back in! We would all like to see him playing again, but absolutely no sense in rushing it. The games are all just to important to take any risks as well. If Glasgow take 12 points from the next three games our season will look very different to us taking 8 or even 4, especially when we are likely to be stripped bear during the next international window.

One would love to glance out of one's window and see a stripped bear but unfortunately this seldom happens in Scotstoun. You need to travel to the frozen wasteland that is Castlemilk for that.

Well I lived in Ohio as a kid, and a bear walked up our street and ate my neighbor. Well, it ate his shoes.

True story.

How did it get his shoes off?

They must have been slip ons, bears can't do laces.

If anyone needs a link send me a PM and I'll reply with a good one

The Glasgow tannoy announcer has got to be one of the most boring men in the world - how his he meant to get the crowd going??

Gives JJ a start - scores a try in the first 10 minutes. Food for thought, Foley?

Far too easy try for Munster there - very un-Glasgow like

Gordon Reid showing early doors why it was a wrong choice to select Grant instead of him last week.

Worrying mistakes from Russell so far.

Not sure about that yellow - Munster guys fairly sure it was legit

Need to see some replays.....

Yeah, penalty Glasgow!

Ref needs to get on top of scrums here. Stopping Munster from feeding would be a start.

Have absolutely no idea what any of these scrum pens have been for.

Actually think the ref got it right on each scrums decisions so far.

Harsh penalty, he was on his feet and when he finally did come off his feet, he released.

Glasgow doing an Edinburgh and giving the opposition easy posession straight after scoring points!

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Harsh penalty, he was on his feet and when he finally did come off his feet, he released.

Yeah but he flopped straight over the ball!

Munster will be happy with this half - not done overly much, wrong side of the ref, but still winning!

Is 'something could have happened' enough to give a pen ?

Was a certainly reckless though!

I hope tye IRB are still looking at improving the scrums. They are still as bad if not worse! Than ever before.

Well done Nakarawa!!

Stuart Barnes is doing his best with the syllable jumbletron - Nakawara, Makarana... what next?

Russell really hasn't had a good few weeks in terms of silly mistakes.

What a break by Seymour!

How the Frak did Russell miss that?

Wahooo!!!

Too close for comfort, Russell really needs to sort out his kicking.

cakeordeath wrote:Too close for comfort, Russell really needs to sort out his kicking.

Thankfully Hanrahan kicking was even worse!

Great win for Glasgow but Russell really is showing alarming levels of flakiness just now, and I reckon is needing rested.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Is 'something could have happened' enough to give a pen ?
Was a certainly reckless though!

Ridiculous desicion he is attempting to play the ball, with his feet does connect with anything and its a penalty. What's next a penalty for thinking about blocking someone.

B- performance from Glasgow but a vital victory, that 2nd half performance crazily had a feel that it saved our season. Of course we wouldn't have been out of anything had we lost but I just think that we had to win that one.

Johnny Gray was outstanding and the game changed with Pygros and Seymour coming on. Pygros gave U.S. control and Seymour made things happen.

Woah - was delighted that we escaped with a win there - we really needed to get back on track or we'd have lost 4 on the bounce and jimmied a 12 game home winning record. Both teams fronted up very well given the injuries that they had. Have a lot of respect for Munster and it's amazing to have won 4 out of the last 5 aqainst them now.

Agree about Russell. He should be on the bench against the Effiminates and ideally not see any game time at all.

RDW_Scotland wrote:Great win for Glasgow but Russell really is showing alarming levels of flakiness just now, and I reckon is needing rested.

Its an interesting conundrum regarding the management of Russell just now. He has not played particularly badly in the past three games, however there is no doubting he has made some silly mistakes and his kicking has fallen away.

I dont think there is any doubt that he is the most talented 10 at our disposal, it also should be remembered that he has probably played less than 30 pro games in his life. It would be my inclination to continue to play him, these matches are the only way he is going to learn to overcome these dips in form. It would be interesting to see how the likes of Leinster managed Sexton in his formative years, did they remove him from games after a dip in form etc.

Just watched the match having been at my Dad's 80th birthday this afternoon. I managed to avoid the score as well, so really enjoyed the game.

Agree that Russell probably needs a rest, it was the right decision to get him back on the horse this week, but a complete week off is now what he needs. Weir has had a good break so let him play the derby games and Russell comes back hopefully refreshed and restored for the European games.

It was a much better second half and You did feel that if they had lost that game the season could have started to go downhill. Now if we can double Edinburgh again, we will be back in very good shape and can really have a go at the last 2 European games.

That was the best game from DTH for some time and he definitely is putting his hand up to be one of the starting wingers. All the wingers played well, Sean put himself about very well and Seymour is just class at the moment. The two second rows had awesome games though and Swinson was pretty good when he came on as well. They can't play every game though and I expect that we will see big Al rotated in for the cup games to save them a bit. It is a busy 6 weeks coming up for the squad and management and selection may well be crucial now.

Just to say, well done Glasgow. Great show of character to come back and win that game.

From an 1872 perspective I'm pleased to hear of Russell's dip in form. Rest him for the 6 Nations I say, and let us face Weir instead......