By Dai
September 19 2003

The Celtic Warriors crashed to defeat against Glasgow at the Brewery Field after putting in a poor performance which cost them a place in the quarter finals of the Celtic Cup. For a report of the match plus team and score details read on.

Dismal defeat for Warriors

Celtic Warriors 9 - 19 Glasgow

    The Celtic Warriors suffered a shock exit from the Celtic Cup at the hands of Glasgow tonight at the Brewery Field. Off the field matters have again been dominating the headlines but on the field there was little to write about as time and time again errors in the Warriors game prevented them from scoring points.

    In the first half both teams tried to play attacking rugby but the Warriors were unable to finish off after creating the openings for the backs and Glasgow lacked pace and cutting edge to break through the Warriors defence. At half time the scores stood at 6 - 6 thanks to the boot of Neil Jenkins for the Warriors and Calvin Howarth for Glasgow.

    The Warriors then got off to the worst possible start in the second half, leaking two tries in five minutes. The first Glasgow try was scored by captain Cameron Mather after Andrew Joy failed to make the tackle and the second was scored by Howarth after prop Phil Booth was unable to put in the hit. Both tries were unconverted leaving Glasgow 16 - 6 in front.

    Neil Jenkins pulled 3 points back before Calvin Howarth restored Glasgows 10 point lead. In the last 20 minutes the Warriors began to show some urgency about them but unfortunately there were too many basic errors which prevented them from carving out any opportunities and so the final score was 19 - 9 in favour of the visitors.

    Overall the work done by the forwards at rucks and mauls was poor (although there were some instances where the referee failed to pick up on their illegal play) and the backs were unable to retain the ball when going into contact with the opposition defenders. All of this added to the basic ball handling errors probably suggests that the Warriors didn't deserve to win this game which is quite true although had they taken a few of their opportunities when there were overlaps available they may still have been in the cup. However, how significant is this cup anyway - yes it would have been nice to pick up a piece of silverware but lets focus our efforts on the bigger prizes - the Celtic League and the Heineken Cup.

Scorers

Warriors: Jenkins (3 pens)

Glasgow: Mather (Try), Howarth (Try and 3 pens)

Teams

Celtic Warriors Starting XV: Mattew Nuthall; Gareth Wyatt, Shaun James, Davd Bishop, Aisea Havili; Neil Jenkins, Paul John; Phil Booth, Andrew Joy, Martyn Jones, Ryan Jones, Nathan Budgett, Richard Parks, Cory Harris, Richard Bryan (capt).
Replacements: Gerald Cox, Chris Horsman, Deiniol Jones, Mark Lewis, J Donovan, Emyr Lewis, Gareth Cull.

Glasgow Starting XV: Stuart Moffat; Sean Lamont, Graeme Morrison, Alan Bulloch, Gareth Maclure; Calvin Howarth, Kenny Sinclair; Andrew Kelly, Simon Gunn, Lee Harrison, Andrew Hall, Joe Beardshaw, Cameron Mather (capt), Roland Reid, Andrew Wilson.
Replacements: Scott Lawson, Euan Murray, Nathan Ross, Paul Dearlove, Mark McMillan, Daniel Parks, Jon Steel.