Danny Wilson calls to order as Glasgow Warriors pay penalty for indiscipline

Ali Price kicks clear during Glasgow Warriors’ defeat by Connacht on Saturday. Picture: Shutterstock

Glasgow Warriors head coach Danny Willson called on his side to immediately improve their discipline after an opening day defeat by Connacht in Galway.

Nick Grigg, Huw Jones and Tommy Seymour scored tries for Warriors, but they were left counting the cost of the concession of 12 penalties and a hatful of missed opportunities in attack.

“There are a couple of key moments there that lead to soft tries,” said Wilson. “I’m not taking anything away from Connacht, they delivered a good performance and probably managed certain situations better than we did.

“There are lessons to learn from that game and some areas functioned really well tonight. Discipline certainly wasn’t one of them. We got ourselves into a decent position at half-time and lost our way with key discipline and decision making errors in the second half.

“We have Scarlets at home next, another tough one. A fully loaded Scarlets would be a real good challenge. So we’ll look at that game, look at what we need to develop and improve on and go into a tough fixture.”

Other than the opening ten minutes, Warriors dominated the first half, but only managed to lead 7-3 at the interval. A poor penalty miss by Adam Hastings cost his side in that period, while Connacht also had Quinn Roux sin binned after the team conceded a flurry of penalties.

While Grigg crossed a minute from the break to give Warriors some comfort, Wilson thinks it was a missed chance during a period of dominance.

“For the amount of pressure we had, yeah (it was a below par return). I think we were probably wondering if a bit more was coming from the penalties they were giving away. I think they gave four penalties away at driving lineouts, a couple of other penalties that did lead to a yellow card.

“But we missed a kick at goal in there as well, which happens. Yeah, we don’t maybe come away from those situations with enough on the scoreboard.”

Hastings’ penalty after the interval put Warriors seven points clear, but two Bundee Aki tries kicked the Irish province on towards victory.

There were two excellent tries by Jones and Seymour to give them hope, but the Warriors coach lamented his side’s second-half inaccuracies. “We scored some really good tries and played some really good rugby, which is us, but also if I’m honest, there were some key moments that are us as well, when we made some poor decisions and left ourselves really exposed.

“I keep banging on about the penalty count, but it was soft penalties, high tackles and bits and pieces that led to them letting the pressure off those guys.

“They are a good side like any side in this league. If you give them penalties, you give them field position and opportunities to build attacks, they will. We have got a lot to improve in those areas.”

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