Glasgow Warriors 7-30 Cardiff Blues: Scots brushed aside by Welsh

CARDIFF rocked Glasgow's league-leader status last night with a very simple message: our 2nd XV is better than your 2nd XV.

It was not quite reserve sides at Firhill last night, but both teams were missing 13 players due to injury and international commitments and it was sufficient to highlight the difference in a Scots squad with less than 3 million to spend each year and a Welsh one with around 6 million.

"It was always going to be tough but I expected more from our guys," said a disappointed Glasgow coach Sean Lineen afterwards. "Yes they might not have been playing regularly but they are mostly experienced players and this is where they earn their living. This is their job and they didn't do their jobs well enough tonight.

"We defended well at times and our scrum did okay but we made too many individual errors, gave away ball far too easily and tried to play in the wrong areas of the field. We need to look forward to Connacht now in two weeks time."

Cardiff claimed their first away win in the league in nearly a year to leave many heading to the exits with still ten minutes remaining. The signs were there from the start with Dougie Hall being injured after just six minutes and Ruaridh Jackson missing two penalty chances in the opening ten minutes, albeit the latter coming moments after he had been flattened by a late tackle from the significant figure of Tongan flanker Ma'ama Molitika.

By contrast, from two periods in the Glasgow half the Blues claimed two penalties, Ben Blair, their All Black full-back, converting both from close range. Jackson missed a third effort, this time from the 22, and with Cardiff's blitz defence successfully shutting down Glasgow's attack and their big men, the likes of No8 Xavier Rush, centre Tom Shanklin and Molitika, finding yards too easy to come by the hosts began to grip the game.

James Eddie, the Glasgow blinside, was in determined mood, Richie Gray, the lock, similarly bullish and Richie Vernon and Jon Welsh strived to provide a lead, while a box-kick by Mark McMillan caused a moment's alarm for the visitors. There was a good battle going on in the scrums, Daniel van der Merwe enlivened the home support with a darting run into the Cardiff half and McMillan caught out the Cardiff defence with a sniping run in behind, but they lacked the phases to turn the promise into something more threatening.

Cardiff's attack had no such worries, building quickly with power and pace against the young Glasgow back line. One swift attack was stopped only yards from Glasgow's left-hand corner when Paul Tito, the Blues skipper, was chopped by McMillan, but it required four defenders to deny them a score on the right. Hefin O'Hare, Glasgow's right wing, then felt the wrath of Irish referee Dudley Phillips, being yellow-carded for going offside as he tried to defend the next attack. Blair duly stretched the visitors' lead to nine points. The situation did not improve on the restart with the sight of Gareth Cooper finishing a flowing attack by reaching over the home line. The fact the scrum-half was playing for Cardiff last night said all one needed to know about his performance in the first half against Scotland just six days earlier, but he could take some satisfaction from giving Cardiff a match-winning platform.

McMillan had to go off with a cut around his left ear, which brought Colin Gregor off the bench, and one wondered if he might bring some direction and cohesion to Glasgow's play. But, still, the hosts struggled in the face of the suffocating, and often offside Cardiff defence, and, without the ball, gave away too much territory with slipshod tackling.

The set-piece was struggling too and there was an inevitability about Cardiff's next try, scored by ex-All Black centre Casey Laulala in the 54th minute, after the home scrum had been decimated. Glasgow had replaced their fast No8 Vernon with lock Dan Turner just a minute earlier and when McMillan came back bandaged, Gregor stayed on, but shifted to fly-half and Jackson was taken off.

Glasgow's embarrassment was complete on the hour-mark when wing Tom James danced through a handful of attempted tackles in the home 22 to score Cardiff's third try. By then Alex Dunbar, the Selkirk centre who hails from Annan, was on for his league debut, and Kevin Tkachuk and Peter Murchie followed soon after and any hopes the hosts had of uncovering some much-desired fluidity was gone.

In the final quarter there was, however, one moment to savour.

Evans had been striving to keep his head above the mediocrity throughout and in the final minute he was rewarded at the end of what has been a difficult week, with his brother Thom undergoing two spinal operations. After determined thrusts down the left, he managed to escape two tackles when the ball came right to dart in for a consolation try.

His downbeat expression at the final whistle showed, however, that it had brought no real consolation to a forgettable Glasgow display.

Scorers: Glasgow: Try – Evans; Con – Gregor. Cardiff: Tries – Cooper, Laulala, James; Pens – Blair 3; Con – Blair 3.

Glasgow: B Stortoni; H O'Hare, M Evans, P Horne, DTH van der Merwe; R Jackson, M McMillan (capt); J Welsh, D Hall, M Low, T Barker, R Gray, J Eddie, C Fusaro, R Vernon. Subs: F Thomson for Hall 6mins, D Turner for Vernon 53, C Gregor for Jackson 57, A Dunbar for Horne 59, P Murchie fro Stortoni, K Tkachuk for Welsh, both 61, P Burke for Fusaro 67,

Cardiff: B Blair; T James, C Laulaula, T Shanklin, C Czekaj; C Sweeney, G Cooper; T Filise, R Thomas, G Powell, D Jones, P Tito (capt), M Molitika, B White, X Rush. Subs: A Pretorious for Molitika 40mins, S Morgan for Tito 59, S Norton-Knight for Blair 63, S Andrews for Powell 67, D Allinson for Cooper 71, D Hewitt for Shanklin 74,

Referee: D Phillips (Ire). Attendance: 2,754.