URC: Glasgow v Ospreys: Warriors shoot themselves in the foot
03/01/2025 05:43 PM
Glasgow Warriors 31
Ospreys 32
DAVID BARNES @ Scotstoun Stadium
A ROLLERCOASTER final 10 minutes saw Warriors snatch the lead for the first time in the match, then fall behind again, then reclaim the lead, before ultimately shooting themselves in the foot by making an absolute dog’s dinner of collecting Ospreys’ late restart to surrender a penalty which allowed visiting full-back Jack Walsh to kick a dramatic overtime winner from wide on the right.
This was Warriors’ first URC regular season home defeat since October 2021 (which was eight months before Franco Smith‘s arrival as head coach at Scotstoun), and the first time Ospreys have won in Glasgow since 2016 (the previous win before that was in 2009). The Scottish side remain second in the table, and an irritable Smith was determined to focus on the positives he saw in his team’s performance rather than discuss the calamitous ending.
"I think that the character shown, sticking to the process for young boys who haven’t played at this level, haven't played in a tight environment like this for a long time, to stick to process and claw our way back against a complete, fully loaded Ospreys team … it's a huge arrow in our quiver,” he claimed.
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“It’s something we will take forward. So, I'm disappointed with the result, yes, but I think the fact that we’ve clawed it back, I’m excited about that. There’s some good character in our team and you can’t buy that. Errors happen in games. Should we have been 31-29 at that stage? No, probably not.
"It was an error in the last minute. We’ve made errors the whole game. Unfortunately, this one led to them winning,” he added. “The fact that we’ve played Fin Richardson his third game in a row. Patrick Schickerling scored two tries, just finding his feet. We’ve had Grant Stewart, who played Super6 last year, starting at home in front of a crowd. We’ve got Alex Samuel and Jare Oguntibeju putting a world-class performance there as the two locks. We’ve had Gus Fraser coming on and playing most of the game as loose forward.
"We’ve had Adam Hastings coming back from a serious head injury. We had Ollie Smith and Duncan Munn playing at centre – it’s not a regular centre [partnership], it’s only the second game or third game that they’ve played together. Ollie’s been training with Scotland the whole time. He’s coming only this week to play out of position for us.
“You can go onto the bench. Sam Talakai hasn’t played for a bit now and he is coming good. Nathan McBeth has made new strides and showed what he’s about. I can carry on.
"My disappointment tonight is absolutely just for the boys. They didn’t want to let anybody down. It ended up being a disappointment because we lost with one point in the 80th minute.
"It could have just as well been different. I’m absolutely going to not look at the negative in this. We’re still second on the log. We’re still clear from the rest. We still have games to play at home. We must go and pick up wins away from home now. We’ll be looking to the next thing."
Ospreys grabbed an early lead when they kicked a penalty to the corner and propelled the maul over the line, with No 8 Morgan Morse getting the ball down.
There was no conversion, and Duncan Weir thought he had retorted on 10 minutes when he gathered a loose ball and nipped under the posts, but Scottish referee David Sutherland– a late call-up when Andrew Brace picked up an injury during the warm-up – ruled that the ball had been knocked forward by Ben Afshar during the build-up.
Warriors continued to press, withRichardson carrying hard, but they came unstuck when Adam Hastings tried to thread a grubber in behind the visiting defence but ended up ended up scampering backward to gather the ball which had rebounded off an Osrpeys defender.
And the away team struck again when Morse broke the line on a No 8 pick-up and then sent Kieran Hardy on an unchallenged 25-yard scamper to the scoring zone.
Things went from bad to worse for Warriors when a clothesline tackle byOrguntibeju on Keelan Giles allowed Dan Edwards to kick to the corner again, and this time hooker Sam Parry finished off the maul.
Finally, Warriors got off the mark on the 20 minutes mark when Henco Venter‘s pressure of the tackle area forced Ospreys into conceding a holding-on penalty, Duncan Weir kicked to the corner, and the maul got to within range for Jack Mann to pick-up and pile over the try-line with unstoppable velocity, with Weir adding the extras.
Warriors struck again when a powerful carry fromSmith broke the line and Schickerling bull-dozed the final few yards, and after a a TMO review it was decided that Edwards had not managed to get his body between the ball and the playing surface after making brave last gasp tackle. Weir was understandably frustrated at missing the very kickable conversion.
But Ospreys were going nowhere, and some nifty hands created an opportunity for Giles to showcase his serious pace to finish on the left, and this time Edwards nailed the touchline conversion.
But Warriors had the final say of the first half when Schickerling crashed under the posts, to set up a straightforward conversion for Weir.
The third-quarter was a tough old arm-wrestle with Ospreys controlling possession and territory, while Warriors were resolute in their resistance – tackling hard and attacking the breakdown to prevent quick-ball–and the tension spilled over into a 30-man scuffle after Venter clashed with Kieran Williams on the edge of a maul. The net outcome was a Glasgow scrum for an Ospreys knock-on, leading to Warriors clearing their lines and venturing into opposition territory for the first time in the half on 64 minutes.
Slowly but surely, Warriors wrestled themselves into the strike-zone, and after a whole lot of huffing and puffing through the big boys in the pack, Afshar changed tack by sending a looping pass leftward to Facundo Cordero, who feinted inside then nipped outside his man to squeeze over in the corner.
Again, there was no conversion, but Glasgow were in the lead for the first time with only eight minutes lefty to play. They couldn’t sustain it, and no sooner had the game restarted than Williams had burst through some pedestrian tackling and then sent Hardy on a sprint under the posts, with Jack Walsh converting for good measure.
But Ospreys then knocked the ball on at the restart, Warriors squeezed a scrum penalty, went to the corner, failed to make headway with the maul, but kept plugging away through a series close-range thrusts through the forwards, and Nathan McBeth eventually found a way over.
The bonus-point was secured, the scores were tied and Weir was the coolest head in the ground as he stepped up to nail the touchline conversion which edged his team into the lead with less than a minute left to play.
Unfortunately for Warriors, the skipper’s coolness under pressure was not replicated across the team, because replacement second-row JP du Preez – just on the pitch for the first time after 19 months out with a knee injury – gathered the restart, tried to carry but then lost his grip of the ball as he was tackled, Cordero scooped up possession and threw a panicked pass to Sean Kennedy, and the veteran replacement scrum-half seemed to calculate that he couldn’t clip a kick into touch to end the game. He was tackled behind the game-line by Daniel Kesende, and ended up giving away a holding-on penalty under pressure from the jackaling Justin Tipuric on the deck.
It was a tough kick from 30 metres out and just seven metres in from the right touchline, but Walsh was equal to the task, with his successful shit at goal secure a dramatic win for the Welsh side.
Teams –
Glasgow Warriors: A Hastings; S Cancelliere, O Smith, D Munn, F Cordero; D Weir, B Afshar (S Kennedy, 72); P Schickerling (N McBeth 45), G Stewart (J Matthews 45), F Richardson ( S Talakai 45), J Oguntibeju, A Samuel (J du Preez b72), E Ferrie (A Miller 79), H Venter, J Mann (A Fraser 33, A Miller 51-64).
Ospreys: J Walsh; D Kasende, E Boshoff, K Williams, K Giles; D Edwards ( I Hopkins 74), K Hardy; G Phillips, S Parry (E Lewis 64), T Botha ( B Warren 51), J Ratti (C Jones 72), J Fender (W Spencer 51), H Deaves, J Tipuric, M Morse (M Morris 51).
Referee: David Sutherland (Scotland)
Scorers –
Glasgow Warriors: Tries: Mann, Schickerling 2, McBeth; Con: Weir.
Ospreys: Tries; Morse, Hardy 2, Parry, Giles; Con: Edwards, Walsh; Pen: Walsh.
Scoring sequence (Glasgow first): 0-5; 0-10; 0-15; 5-15; 7-15; 12-15; 12-20; 12-22; 17-22; 19-22 (h-t) 24-22; 24-29; 29-29; 31-29; 13-32.
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