I was at it and although not the coldest night the lateral rain was up there with the worst I've ever seen in the SG. Disappointing result but an improvement on last year's hammering we took on the opening day. Butler's performance and Jack's kicking from the tee were the main positives IMO.

Tony Ward critical today of Ben Whitehouse who had a poor game: www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/guinness-...se-too-36100543.html

I don't care who you are. If you take a flat pass standing still and try to break the gameline you're going to have a bad time of it. Glasgow's runners came from deep and at pace, we took it standing still and either move laterally or got pushed back...

Bazzo wrote: Was at EP at the weekend so didn't catch the match but I notice a few people are saying we needed a forward to get over the gainline with carries. Was Dillane completely off the pace?

The two tries came from scrums where our wingers dropped the ball, so it wasn't the losing of the game. But as to winning it, some of our players carried very high. Mul and especially Dillane were probably the most to blame in that regard. Ultan almost cantered into contact a few times he was so upright and got smashed.

I didn't think Glasgow displayed awesome carrying power (Bucks asides their pack was the same size or smaller man for man), they were just smart. A lot of the time they were going to ground almost before the tackle and sliding over the gainline. The handful of our lads who carried like this saw some success (Tom and Cannon for example, but it was swings and roundabouts when it came to the lineout). The other thing they did well was two man carries where one man latched onto the other and made damn sure they got over the gainline. Last quarter we got on top carrying-wise, SOB and Farrell did very well when they came on.

Was at EP at the weekend so didn't catch the match but I notice a few people are saying we needed a forward to get over the gainline with carries. Was Dillane completely off the pace?

we are certainly missing a big ball-carrying 2nd row or back-row forward, SOB did show he can make a few hard yards, I wonder if we will see Bundee at 12 for the foreseeable future, is that where Schmidt wants him to play for Ireland. Beside him Griffin was anonymous, I'm not sure he has much to offer it pains me to say. I know that the rule is you don't let the ball bounce when receiving kicks but in the conditions it was the 2 dropped balls in the 2nd half that was the losing of the game and of course that we didn't score at least one try in the 1st half. it was our Achilles last year, not converting when we get into the opponents 22. I still think top 3 is a big ask but if Muldoon's comments are correct about signings still to come then my opinion might change. As for the tap and go, I doubt that even Darragh could have got it close enough to the corner in that wind

My impression was that he though tit was simply a free kick rather than a penalty?

True, some baffling calls went against them early in the game though which may have been in the back of his mind

menacethedenis wrote: I wasn't surprised he tapped it with the way the lineout had been going all night

Point taken, but scrum was an option too...

I wasn't surprised he tapped it with the way the lineout had been going all night

RonanL wrote: Despite all the shortcomings people have listed above, we were still in with a shout towards the end. Was anyone else frustrated by Mul's decision to tap and go when we were awarded a penalty well inside their half towards the end? Surely a kick to the corner was the way to go there.

I appreciate that it was a weakened Glasgow side, but it's one more match point than we got last year from the fixture and I'm remaining positive for the season as a whole. There's no way KK would have been using his first couple of weeks to focus on monsoon tactics - let's wait and see how they perform in better conditions.

1) The tap 'n go was dumb as a bag of hammers, where I was we were groaning before it left his boot.
2) KK was clearly completely unprepared for how bad the Sportsground weather can be* - if you check the match gallery on the Connacht site you'll see he's wearing WHITE JEANS!!!!

*Joking asides, Galway is much wetter than Dublin, which in turn has weather slightly worse than Dunedin, whose climate was deemed poor enough to warrant an indoor stadium. Land of the Long White Cloud my arse!

Despite all the shortcomings people have listed above, we were still in with a shout towards the end. Was anyone else frustrated by Mul's decision to tap and go when we were awarded a penalty well inside their half towards the end? Surely a kick to the corner was the way to go there.

I appreciate that it was a weakened Glasgow side, but it's one more match point than we got last year from the fixture and I'm remaining positive for the season as a whole. There's no way KK would have been using his first couple of weeks to focus on monsoon tactics - let's wait and see how they perform in better conditions.

Very disappointing start to the season against an understrength Glasgow team who, despite defending very well, I don’t think had to work particularly hard for their win. For anyone who wasn’t there, just in case it didn’t come across on TV, the conditions were absolutely atrocious. It was like the middle of winter. After about 15 minutes the stewards started ushering people off the end terraces and into the main and clan stands, that’s how bad it was. It was inevitably going to be a slog and Glasgow played it far better than we did. It’s impossible to judge the team so early in the season and after a game in those conditions but the worrying play from last season was still there. Lateral passing with no penetration over the gainline, shambolic lineout, some very weak tackling and breakdown work, poor or non-existent tactical kicking…. KK certainly has his work cut out for him. There were some positives as has already been mentioned by others. The scrum started badly but got much, much better as the game went on. Butler got through an enormous amount of work and was always looking for the ball, I’m really looking forward to seeing him in better conditions. Huge improvements needed across the board then before the Kings game, hopefully the weather will be better too….

Worrying start to the season Very much second best to a reserve Glasgow side, they're going to be good this year as they've recruited well but they'll not send out a team that weak on many occasions this season.

Couldn't kick the corners as we couldn't even secure our own ball at lineout, forget about challenging theirs
So little faith in our backup LHs that Buckley played the whole game despite no preseason time
Not one of our back three had a good game, none of them were able to catch or hold onto the ball
No ball carriers in the pack, Glasgow were making easy yards every time they carried, we were being driven back. I'm a huge Masterson fan but he was anonymous.
Scrum was weak, that's a poor Glasgow scrum but they rarely looked in trouble against us

There were some positives:
SOB looked very good when he came on.
Butler was impressive, very industrious and gets through a mountain of work
Defense looked structured but not aggressive enough. Glasgow won 80%+ of the contacts

We've need ball carriers for a couple of years now, without someone that can batter you over the line your counting on good play to get you there and when the conditions are as bad as they were Saturday you're going to struggle.

Lineout problems still need to be worked out. Scrum misfired in the first half, but think they were able to figure out what the ref was looking for by the second. Some ok positional kicking, but some woeful positional kicking too. Bench looked impressive. A lot of unforced errors, but very easy to make excuses for that given the weather. Didn't do a huge amount offensively, even though we looked dangerous when we were camped out at their line. Three try scoring opportunities in a short space of time, you'd have to wonder how things would have progressed if we'd come away with 7 at that stage.

Very hard to get an accurate read on where the players are due to the conditions. Rain was sideways, very blustery throughout.

Roll on next week. I think Kings are going to try and bounce back after their, um, less than stellar debut.

Let's face it honnestly

1) we can't catch a single high ball and most lineouts, Glasgow did. No excuse, TOH/Browne were missing for these
2) I don't identify the all-international front-row which was so dominant 2 years ago. And Glasgow scrum isn't the best we'll face...
3) what happened to the ball-carrying skill of Aki, Dillane, Buckley?
4) IIRC we broke their line once (Kelleher with the right option to kick but execution was straight into touch). Glasgow did 4/5 times. Can't blame the conditions for the gap

a few positive notes :

1) we could have undeservely win but also could have lost our BP...
2) handling was not worse than Glasgow's one (except high-balls/lineouts), in open-play
3) the bench looked decent indeed (Farrell, Ron, SOB)
4) Carty/Griffin are not the one to blame IMO, and happy surprise to see Butler jumping and giving extra-option in the lineout (Fox/Heenan didn't)


BTW, owe you an apologie, SOB came into the back-row (mistake IMO as Dillane looked out-of-breath, but still you were right)