Gloucester
Glaws turn recent promise into HC flop in Scotland
Evans try
By Cherry Picker
December 12 2009
Gloucester can virtually say goodbye to the Heineken Cup for another season after a weak display in Scotland handed in-form Glasgow a 33-11 victory. There was nothing in the Glaws display to suggest they can turn their outside chance of going further into a reality when the team meet in the return at Kingsholm next weekend.
After some encouraging performances in recent weeks, the game brought Gloucester to a shuddering halt and left players and coach Bryan Redpath struggling to find a reason, let alone an excuse, for the flop.
The only consolation that the match was a long way away on a Friday night just before Christmas, which meant that not many Glaws supporters saw it first hand, so there weren’t many dissenting voices as Glasgow won easily.
But there will be next weekend unless there’s a big improvement.
After the game Redpath admitted to the BBC that he felt Glaws were “passive” in defence.
We can only guess that by that he means they were crap, because that is a better description.
He added: “Our discipline was poor and I thought we looked cumbersome in some aspects.
"I don't know why, because it was the best we have trained in eight weeks.
"I think Glasgow are playing well this year and deserved their victory. We were well and truly beaten by a team that did the basics better than us.
"But our players will get stick back at Kingsholm and now it's difficult to see any further than the next game in the Heineken Cup."
Talking to the Citizen, he added: “From minute one we didn't turn up. We fell off tackles and our execution looked flat.
"But to perform like that as a group is very hard. There was some ill-discipline which the referee penalised and Parks capitalised in the first half."
He certainly did – Glasgow were 27-11 up at the break thanks to tries by Max Evans and Bernardo Stortoni in response to an opener by Charlie Sharples.
But the real difference was Dan Parks, who converted one try and kicked seven penalties to punish Glaws for an inept, shambling and naïve team performance, though they weren’t helped by the sin-binning of Peter Buxton for what looked an innocuous offence.
But nothing can disguise a bad night for Glaws, and nothing can excuse it either.
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12/12/2009 10:24
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Fair play to all the travelling fans, some of the banter between you and the locals was superb. I don't think there will be too many Warriors fans coming down this weekend. As one of the fans said "nah mate, I'm Scottish. I'm tight!"
