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Huw Jones injury mars Glasgow win over Connacht

By PA
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - APRIL 22: Warriors' Huw Jones goes down injured during a BKT United Rugby Championship match between Glasgow Warriors and Connacht at Scotstoun Stadium, on April 22, 2023, in Glasgow, Scotland. (Photo by Rob Casey/SNS Group via Getty Images)

Glasgow Warriors were pushed to the wire by Connacht before claiming a 29-27 win at their Scotstoun fortress which sets them up nicely for the crunch part of their season.

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The double-chasing Warriors, who are now unbeaten in 17 successive home matches, will hope to carry their momentum into next week’s Challenge Cup semi-final away to Scarlets and then their home United Rugby Championship play-off quarter-final against Munster.

Glasgow were already of fourth place in the URC and started the match like they did not have a care in the world.

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They fired through several slick phases straight from kick-off, with Huw Jones and Stafford McDowall making good headway with powerful midfield bursts.

Then Rory Darge appeared on the scene to send Jones over for the game’s opening try with neat back-handed offload.

Connacht – who needed a win to claim a place in the Champions Cup next season – bounced back immediately by forcing Jones to carry the ball back over his own line, and then pressurising the home scrum into conceding a penalty try.

Warriors’ scrum continued to struggle, but their play around the park was razor sharp, and they raced back into the lead in the 18th minute when Tom Jordan juggled the ball before streaking under the posts.

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The home side lost Scott Cummings to the sin-bin for an obstruction on Caolin Blade and Jack Carty kicked the three easy points for the visitors.

Connacht worked hard to take advantage of the extra man and were rewarded with the lead when number eight Cian Prendergast burrowed over from a tap penalty, with Carty adding the extras.

Warriors did not panic however, and they struck back before Cummings had returned to the fray with Ali Price finishing off on the left after some sharp link play.

Cole Forbes thought he had scored try number three for Glasgow – who led 19-17 at the break – after Jordan and Jones capitalised on turnover ball, but the latter had knocked-on whilst being tackled and so it was chalked off.

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There was no more scoring until the hour mark, when replacement Glasgow hooker Johnny Matthews went over at the back of a line-out maul and George Horne added the touchline conversion to make 26-17.

Connacht would not lie down though, and after Horne and Carty had exchanged penalties, a Shamus Hurley-Langton try converted by Carty made for a tense final five minutes – but Warriors held on.

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Tom 1 hour ago
England player ratings vs South Africa | 2024 Autumn Nations Series

That 2019 performance was literally the peak in attacking rugby under Eddie. If you thought that was underwhelming, the rest of it was garbage.


I totally get what you're saying and England don't need or have any God given right to the best coaches in the world... But I actually think the coaches we do have are quite poor and for the richest union in the world, that's not good enough. 


England are competitive for sure but with the talent pool up here and the funds available, we should be in the top 3. At the very least we should be winning six nations titles on a semi-regular basis. If Ireland can, England definitely should.


England's attack coach (Richard Wigglesworth) is Borthwick's mate from his playing days at Saracens, who he brought to Leicester with him when he became coach. Wigglesworth was a 9 who had no running or passing game, but was the best box kicker in the business. He has no credentials to be an attack coach and I've seen nothing to prove otherwise. Aside from Marcus Smith’s individual brilliance, our collective attack has looked very uninspiring.

 

England's defence coach (Joe El-Abd) is Borthwick's housemate from uni, who has never been employed as a defence coach before. He's doing the job part time while he's still the head coach of a team in the second division of French rugby who have an awful defensive record. England's defence has gone from being brutally efficient under Felix Jones to as leaky as a colander almost overnight.


If Borthwick brings in a new attack and defence coach then I'll absolutely get behind him but his current coaches seem to be the product of nepotism. He's brought in people he's comfortable with because he lacks confidence as an international head coach and they aren't good enough for international rugby.


England are competitive because they do some things really well, mostly they front up physically, make a lot of big hits, have a solid kicking game, a good lineout, good maul, Marcus Smith and some solid forwards. A lot of what we do well I would ascribe to Borthwick personally. I don't think he's a bad coach, I think he lacks imagination and is overly risk averse. He needs coaches who will bring a point of difference.


I guess my point is, yes England are competitive, but we’re not aiming for competitive and I honestly don't believe this coaching setup has what it takes to make us any better than competitive.


On the plus side it looks like we have an amazing crop of young players coming through. Some of them who won the u20 world cup played for England A against Australia A on the weekend and looked incredible... Check out the highlights on youtube.

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