Heineken Cup- 11 December, 2009
Glasgow 33- Gloucester 11
Well beaten by Glasgow
By Our Man Oop North with the pint of heavy and the deep fried Mars bar
As we watched the fog swirl in across the pitch from our room behind the posts, high above Firhill, we wondered whether we would get to see any rugby six hours later. We also wondered why we’d bothered to buy tickets for the match, as the view from our eyrie was far better than the view from within the ground. Little did we suspect that it would have been better from a Gloucester perspective had the game not gone ahead – in fact I’m still not sure whether all of our team actually turned up or not.
It was a truly dreadful performance from the cherry and whites. After Parks had kicked his third penalty, I began to wonder, not for the first time over the last couple of seasons, whether our players understand the importance of keeping their discipline on the pitch – clearly they had left what common sense they have in the dressing rooms. Gloucester were second best in virtually every aspect of the game – even our much vaunted (by some) front row was literally taken apart by their less illustrious (and probably far less remunerated) opponents.
To put the cherry and white’s performance into some perspective, last night was the first win by Glasgow over an English side for seven years. And the result was never beyond doubt well before the first half ended. Yes, Gloucester were that bad. We did have a try to cheer, though, when Parks attempted an up and under that went vertically up and down, and resulted ultimately in a try for Charlie Sharples. But there was precious else for us to cheer, as the all too predictable sight of Parks teeing up another shot at goal became the abiding memory of the game. Just before half time Parks proved he could actually pass the ball as well as boot it, when he sent in Stortoni for Glasgow’s second try. But where was the defence?
The real disappointment was that Glasgow prospered easily with a team that really wanted to win. By contrast, I couldn’t help wondering whether Gloucester were just there to fulfil the fixture. There is a lot of talk about how important it is to qualify for the Heinekin Cup each year; given the two performances I have seen in this competition this season – Biarritz and Glasgow away – it really doesn’t matter whether or not we qualify, because we have not a cat in hell’s chance of ever qualifying from a group again. We simply are not good enough. We are now bottom of our group.
No doubt words will be said during the week, and I’m sure we will do better against this Glasgow team at Kingsholm than we did at Firhill – but the fact remains that we are currently playing like a shadow of the side of 3 or 4 seasons ago, and changes at the very top are the only answer. And yes, I started this report determined to be positive, but had I stuck to the plan I’m afraid you’d have got less than a paragraph. I really hope I’m proven wrong. |
