Jack Dempsey scored Glasgow’s first try and they started off incredibly strong. In the end, the score was Glasgow Warriors 31 – Lions 21. Glasgow made a big achievement by beating Lions in the Challenge Cup and making it to their very first semi-final European match!
At the interval, Sanele Nohamba made Glasgow’s lead narrower. Then Zander Fagerson helped widen it again a bit more. The Lions kept on fighting and Francke Horn scored them another point. But later, George Horne got another penalty for Glasgow and Tom Jordan increased the lead even further. At last, Morne Brandon also added another score to their total before the semi-final at the end of April.
Glasgow started off really well, continuing their streak of recent good performances. They were playing fast and aggressively, showing great precision in their shots. Unfortunately, the Lions had to take out Rabz Maxwane after just seven minutes in the game due to a very nasty collision with Matt Fagerson which caused him to leave the field on a stretcher.
The Lions had a setback when they could not stop the Glasgow team from scoring. Richie Gray and the rest of their teammates worked together with perfect timing to make an amazing move, passing the ball back-and-forth until it got to Sione Tuipulotu who then gave it to Dempsey to score over their number eight player. Just after this happened, one of their flanker players had to leave.
Right after he left, Glasgow scored again. This time, they worked fast and accurately with swift hand motions until Ollie Smith passed the ball to Dobie. Just like he had done earlier with Dempsey’s points, Horne kicked the extra point and the Warriors were winning 14-0 without any trouble.
For most of the first half and even into the second period, the Lions team had control of the field. They did lots of carries, especially Asenathi Ntlabakanye with a whopping 22 carries!
They had multiple opportunities to break through Glasgow’s defense like line-out, scrums, and a tap penalty really deep in their territory, but they couldn’t make it happen.
Glasgow was doing amazingly well on defense, while they were having problems with their line-outs. They kept losing a lot of balls in the touch and when they did get some, it was usually quite messy. Gray was really giving them a hard time too. They managed to keep the visitors from scoring any points before the half ended, which must have been annoying for them.
Just a few minutes after the game restarted, Edinburgh managed to score a point which seemed surprisingly easy to get. Nohamba tapped the ball and then ran straight towards Glasgow’s goal posts with it. Then he scored his own goal and this showed the hosts that their task wasn’t going to be as simple as they expected.
It was a worrying time for everyone from Glasgow since their opponents, the Lions, have been known to become more dangerous whenever they get ‘really motivated’.
Last week’s game between Racing and the Lions showed this clearly – even when one of the Lion players got a red card (meaning he was removed from the game), they still managed to beat Racing with an incredible score of 51-28.
Glasgow wanted to end the good moment of their team. They did it when Gray managed to grab a line-out close to the Lions’s area which made Zander Fagerson cross the line for them and with the conversion, Glasgow now had a 14-point lead. But soon after, Horn scored another try for the Lions and this time, the conversion was successful too so suddenly, Glasgow only had a 7 point advantage.
The Glasgow Horne scored a penalty which increased their lead to 10. Then Huw Jones did something amazing – he passed the ball to Smith, who then delivered it to Jordan and this was when everything became calm again.
Horne also made a successful conversion, but that didn’t stop Lions from trying as Brandon managed to make a try in the final moments of the game. However, Glasgow still won!
This was their first semi-final for European championship, but they’re not stopping just yet. In fact, they’ll have a huge match against Scarlets in Llanelli following this.
Franco Smith Proud of Team Glasgow’s Efforts in spite of Loss to Scarlets
Glasgow’s head coach Franco Smith said that the team did not have too much control of the ball but he knows why – everyone there really cares and doesn’t want to let down their teammates. He also said there was a lot of effort in defense during the game, making him proud to be a part of it. Finally, he added that Scarlets are playing very well right now and they should keep taking things one step at a time.
Team Glasgow has Smith, Steyn, Jones, Tuipulotu, Dobie, Miotti and Horne on the field; Bhatti, Turner, Z Fagerson, Cummings, Gray and M Fagerson are among their substitutes. The replacements are Matthews, McBeth, Berghan, Du Preez and Bean too.
The Lions have Horn, Maxwane, Rass, Louw and Van der Merwe playing in the team; Lombard and Nohamba are other players in the squad. Botha , Ntlabakanye , Alberts , Schoeman , Kriel , Venter and Horn form a strong team of starters. The replacement members include Brandon , Rijnsburger , Dreyer , Delport as well as Gordon and Van den Berg with Jonker and Coetzee too.
