Glasgow show true grit but draw in France dents Euro bid

Any team travelling to the South of France in search of victory and the four points it brings had better take their A-game to the party. No one can say that Glasgow did that against Montpellier on Saturday.

Sean Lineen’s team were never at the races in the first half of the game and they scarcely mounted an attack worthy of the name. Their late comeback suggests, however, that there is little wrong with the team’s spirit. They showed true grit, with Richie Gray and Johnnie Beattie performing defensive heroics to keep Montpellier at bay until the 34th minute when winger Yoan Audrin sneaked over.

Early in the second half Glasgow got off the mark themselves with a Ruaridh Jackson penalty before they allowed Montpellier’s impressive 19-year-old fly-half Ilian Perraux to notch two quick penalties that gave his side a 13-3 lead.

It looked like being enough until the final quarter of the match when, urged on by a 60-strong band of travelling supporters, Glasgow burst into life.

Al Kellock opted to go for the corner rather than the posts after winning a penalty and he was rewarded a few phases later when Duncan Weir’s angled run sent Rory Lamont over the line. The try breathed some self-belief into the side and the forwards were performing heroics at the set scrum.

They had already earned Weir one long-range effort that he missed but when the big men won a second penalty at the set scrum, the fly-half made no mistake. The two minutes left on the clock was still ample time for replacement scrumhalf Benoit Paillaugue to fluff a simple match-winning penalty for Montpellier. His horrible kick was described as a “haggis” by Weir who also had a rare miss.

“With the kick that I missed, I picked up my tee as soon as I’d hit it, convinced that it was sailing through,” said Weir after the match, “but I looked back and it seemed to have put its indicators on in the swirling wind and slid past the post

“Still it was nice getting a good wee run and I think that in the time I was on the pitch we had the better possession and a better tempo on the game.”

If Sean Lineen was confused about which fly-half to start with beforehand, he will be no wiser after the double header against Montpellier. Last weekend Weir started the match, Glasgow had a forgettable first half and Jackson came on to help manufacture a try and bring some urgency to proceedings. On Saturday their roles were reversed with Weir the catalyst for Lamont’s score.

The fly-halfs’ inconsistency is mirrored by Glasgow’s inability to walk the walk for the full 80 minutes and this must be a worry for Lineen.

After claiming the first kick off brilliantly, Stuart Hogg couldn’t catch the ball thereafter. Chris Cusiter had a kick charged down and failed to notice the ball squirting out of a scrum so, by the time he passed it, Jackson got the ball and the Montpellier breakaways at pretty much the same time. In addition Glasgow twice almost gifted the opposition interception tries.

After the game Lineen claimed that his side had played too much rugby in the wrong areas of the field but he’d also warned against kicking away too much cheap possession in the build up to this match. Professional rugby can be a confusing business.

“We’re disappointed not to have won,” Weir continued. “We just need a good home win against Leinster to give us a chance of qualifying for the later stages. We want to be in the Heineken Cup, that’s the best competition and we want to challenge ourselves against the best teams.

“It we beat Leinster at home and then go down to Bath and put in a big shift, then perhaps we could qualify as second in the group.”

A quick look at history suggests that 20 is the magic number for a second-placed qualification. But Glasgow are only on ten and are badly in need of bonus points if they are to have any chance of reaching it. Beating the European champions is a big ask and to do so by four tries looks beyond this squad unless they cut out the mistakes.

Incidentally, while it may not have felt like it to the battered and bruised Glasgow players, their French opponents were not taking this match quite as seriously. They fielded a teenage fly-half who is not yet part of the senior squad and no more than a handful of regular starters. As if to underline this, Montpellier coach Fabien Galthie sat in the press box where he spent at least part of the game as an impromptu cheerleader, orchestrating the fans around him in chants of “MONT-PELL-IER! MONT-PELL-IER!” It still wasn’t quite enough to propel his team to their first European win of the season.

Scorers: Montpellier: Try: Audrin Conv: Perraux Pen: Perraux (2). Glasgow: Try: Lamont Conv: Weir Pen: Jackson, Weir.

Montpellier: Peyras Loustalet (Doumayrou 59), Berard, Bosch, Combezou, Audrin; Perraux, Escande (Paillauguue 67); Shvelidze, Ladhuie, Kervarec (Bustos 50 min), Tuineau, Hancke, Bost (Galletier 2), Martin, Matadigo.

Glasgow: Hogg (Dewey 40), Aramburu, Murchie, Nathan, Lamont; Jackson (Weir 57 min) Cusiter; Grant (Welsh 59 min) MacArthur (Hall 53), Cusack (Low 53), Kellock, Gray (Ryder 57), Barclay, Fusaro (Wilson 30 min), Beattie.