Warriors dominated the opening 10 minutes, but didn’t get much change out of their usually irrepressible line-out maul, and came up against some stout midfield defence. However, when they turned the focus of attack to one-out carries from their forwards they were able to crank up the pressure, and it felt like a matter of time before they would take the lead. Sure enough, that opening scored arrive when Matt Fagerson pirouetted out of a goal-line tackle to flop over the line, setting up an easy conversion for Adam Hastings.

There was no zip to Edinburgh’s play. Whatever possession they did have they tended to kick away, or ended up carrying slow ball from a standing-start into the nearest tackler, and when Pierre Schoeman found himself in trouble on the deck inside his own 22 they ended up conceding a penalty for a neck roll by Glen Young on Gregor Hiddleston. Fortunately for the capital side, Warriors were nowhere near their razor sharpest either, and that promising attacking opportunity came to nothing when their line-out maul once again floundered (for the third time in 23 minutes).

Somewhat against the run of play, Edinburgh struck back just before the half hour mark. A mix-up on halfway saw Glasgow concede a penalty for playing the ball on the deck, and the hosts were then penalised twice more for illegally resisting the visiting line-out maul. On the third time of asking, Liam McConnell caught near the tail and Dylan Richardson powered through some soft defence to the right of the jumper.

Cammy Scott failed with the conversion, and Glasgow were handed a route right back into the game when McConnell lost the ball in contact from the restart. The hosts  spent another sustained period camped deep inside Edinburgh territory but it came to nothing, with Jack Dempsey being held up over the line.

Jamie Dobie threatened twice on the right – on the second occasion of a very forward looking pass from Adam Hastings – but couldn’t escape the cover defence either time, and Max Williamson was held up over the line by Matt Currie when Warriors reverted back to the more direct approach.

All of which meant it was still 7-5 when Irish referee Eoghan Cross blew the half-time whistle.

It was more of the mundane same after the break. Kyle Steyn twice briefly raise pulse levels with a break on the right and then chasing but not quite reaching Sione Tuipulotu’s diagonal grubber before it bounced harmlessly over the dead-ball line, but

When Glasgow stretched their lead, it came through a similar approach to their earlier try, with Rory Darge powering over from close range this time, and Hastings again adding the conversion.

The game finally burst into life when Tuipulotu exploited a miss-match in midfield to show Magnus Bradbury a clean pair off heels, and then Hastings picked out an opportunity for Dobie on the left touchline with a lovely cross-kick.

The Warriors man caught it in the air and was half-tackled by Ben Vellacott just before he landed, meaning a penalty was the right call. Warriors kicked to the corner and reverted back to the more pragmatic approach of their now-functioning-again line-out maul, which led to Hiddleston scoring his team’s third try.

The writing was on the wall for Edinburgh, although the scampering Vellacott capitalising on a dropped ball at a line-out gave them the sniff of a score which might have made a game of the last 20 minutes, but a frustrated Darcy Graham – who had come in off his wing looking for something to do – had the ball ripped from his grasp as he tried to hot-step through a forest of bodies.

To give them some credit, Edinburgh kept plugging away, and they eventually got their reward when Grant Gilchrist burrowed over, and Ross Thompson converted, to make it a seven-point game with eight minutes of regular time remaining.

That seemed to wake Warriors up, and after Dobie lost control of the ball after being collared – perhaps illegally – by Wes Goosen as he dived for the corner, replacement hooker Seb Stephen claimed his first try for Warriors with just over three minutes to go, with Edinburgh’s replacement second-row Callum Hunter-Hill being shown the yellow-card for coming in late and dropping his shoulder the scorer’s back in an act of petulance rather than nastiness.

 

Teams –

Glasgow Warriors: O Smith; K Steyn ©, S McDowall, S Tuipulotu (D Lancaster 77), J Dobie; A Hastings, G Horne (B Afshar 77); N McBeth (R Sutherland 60), G Hiddleston (S Stephen 60), Z Fagerson (S Talakai, 60), M Williamson (G Brown 44), S Cummings, M Fagerson (A Craig 60), R Darge, J Dempsey (v 75).

Edinburgh: W Goosen; D Graham, M Currie, P O’Conor (M Davidson. 53), D van der Merwe; C Scott (R Thompson 67), B Vellacott (C McApline 75); P Schoeman (B Venter, 55), E Ashman ( H Morris 53), O Blyth-Laffety (P Hill 41), G Young (C Hunter-Hill 64), G Gilchrist, L McConnell, D Richardson (F Douglas 67), M Bradbury.

Referee: Eoghan Cross (Ireland)

 

Scorers –

Glasgow Warriors: Tries: Fagerson, Darge, Hiddleston, Stephen; Con: Hastings 2.

Edinburgh: Tries: Richardson, Gilchrist; Con: Thompson.

Scoring sequence (Glasgow Warriors first): 5-0; 7-0; 7-5 (h-t) 12-5; 14-5; 19-5; 19-10; 19-12; 24-12.

 

Yellow cards –

Edinburgh: Hunter-Hill (76 mins)

Attendance: 21, 093