Glasgow 24 - 3 Connacht: Warriors push on to Dublin

They were never likely to win too many points for artistic interpretation but Glasgow Warriors extended their season by at least one week after beating their bogey team Connacht in their final ever game at Firhill last night.

The match had a nice symmetry to it with a standing ovation for coach Sean Lineen before the first whistle and the same appreciation shown to the players after the last.

By finishing fourth Glasgow have booked themselves the dubious privilege of a trip to Dublin to play Leinster next Saturday in the RaboDirect semi-final. Glasgow beat Connacht for the first time in five attempts thanks to four penalties from Duncan Weir, pictured, a suitable way to celebrate his selection in the RaboDirect Pro12 team of the year, and a try in each half.

Winger DTH Van Der Merwe showed the finishing pace and power that Glasgow have missed for much of this season by claiming the opening touchdown after 25 minutes. The Canadian sneaked into the left-hand corner after Alex Dunbar made good ground on the opposite flank, with Richie Gray and Stuart Hogg showing good passing skills along the way. The second try came just ten minutes from full time. With Connacht a man short Glasgow were awarded a five-metre scrum and they had only one thing in mind. Sure enough the big men flexed their muscles and drove the visitors back over their own try line just by the posts with No.8 John Barclay claiming the score. Stand-off Ruaridh Jackson, on for Weir, made no mistake with the conversion.

All Connacht could manage in reply was a solitary penalty from stand-off Miah Nikora in the first half, after which Glasgow’s defence never really gave the visitors much of sniff.

The match was a slow burner but it sparked into life just before half time when the two locks, Tom Ryder and Mike McCarthy, started a barney that included most of the two packs going at each other even if, with so much at stake, there was little by the way of real uppercuts thrown.

It was a bit frustrating for Glasgow, who spent huge chunks of the first half camped deep inside Connacht territory with little to show for all their efforts. The home team looked dangerous when they put pace on the ball and upped the tempo. For their part the beefy Connacht pack won several turnovers by holding the Glasgow forwards off the ground in the contact area and the Irish referee wasted no time in blowing his whistle.

On the positive side Moray Low is getting back to something approaching his best form in the tight exchanges and enjoyed several charges in the loose, Chris Fusaro won key turnovers whenever Connacht threatened and the little dynamo must be the strongest man pound for pound in the Warriors squad. At scrum-half Henry Pyrgos has an occasionally erratic service but he still did enough to justify his selection. Outside of him Van Der Merwe showed his class, Dunbar showed his footwork and Hogg showed in flashes.

In the second half Weir added two more penalties to the brace he kicked in the first half before Lineen sent on almost his entire bench, replacing both halfbacks and giving Al Kellock a chance to stake a claim to next weekend’s semi-final XV.

The last quarter of the match was played at a frenetic pace but the introduction of so many substitutes by both sides meant that no one was operating on quite the same wavelength. The effort was there but the precision was badly lacking. Eventually a yellow card to Connacht’s reserve scrum-half Paul O’Donohoe for some needless off-the-ball nonsense with Chris Cusiter helped the Glasgow pack muscle a set scrum across the line to give the score board a more comfortable look.

Connacht finished the match with an endless series of pick and drives that culminated in a yellow card being flashed at Barclay and a try being disallowed, after the referee went “upstairs”, under the Glasgow posts. Number eight George Naoupu then knocked on over the line to give the Firhill faithful one last cheer.

Connacht field plenty of beef in a big, muscular pack of forwards that Glasgow struggled at times to contain.

Lineen’s men will need to up their performance by several leagues next Saturday if they are to trouble a Leinster team that has lost exactly one of their last 27 matches.

Scorers: Glasgow: Try: DTH Van Der Merwe, Barclay. Con: Jackson. Pens: Weir 4. Connacht: Pen: Nikora

Glasgow: Hogg; Aramburu, Dunbar, Morrison, Van Der Merwe (Shaw 60 min); Weir (Jackson 60 min), Pyrgos (Cusiter 60 min); Welsh (Grant 51 min), Hall (McArthur 51 min), Low (Cusak 60 min), Gray (Kellock 60 min) Ryder, Harley, Fusaro (Forrester 70 min), Barclay.

Connacht: Duffy; Tonetti, Griffin, Fa’afili, O’Halloran; Nikora (Jarvis 55 min), Murphy (O’Donohoe 51 min); Buckley (Ah You 51 min), Flavin, Loughney, Swift, McCarthy, Muldoon, O’Connor (Ofisa 53 min), Naoupu.

Referee: P Fitzgibbon (IRFU). Attendance: 5,374