Keep on trucking: Al Dickinson urges Glasgow Warriors to finish off the job at Murrayfield

Glasgow Warriors won the physical battle in the 1872 Cup first leg at Scotstoun and now Al Dickinson has urged his pack to go and finish the job off at BT Murrayfield.

Jack Dempsey's first-half try handed the impetus to Glasgow Warriors in the 1872 Cup first leg against Edinburgh. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

It’s six long years since Glasgow beat Edinburgh away and the Warriors scrum coach believes they will need a significantly improved performance if they are to win the second leg on December 30. Last Friday’s game was fiercely contested but Glasgow held the upper hand for all but a short period at the start of the second half when Connor Boyle’s converted try brought Edinburgh to within three points of their opponents. The home side responded impressively, eventually winning 16-10 after Tom Jordan added two penalties to Jack Dempsey’s first-half try. Nevertheless, Dickinson believes they have a lot more to give.

“Backing it up is probably the biggest thing,” said the former Scotland prop who knows all about this fixture from his two spells with Edinburgh. “It’s never hard to get the boys up for games like this, especially the forwards. It’s a very close rivalry. So it’s mostly just to back up our first leg performance but add more to it.

“Can we still get better? That’s the challenge we face as coaches and they as players. We don't want them to be satisfied with that performance. There are little tweaks here and there we can make once we’ve analysed the game. And we’ll have to be better next week if we want to have any chance of winning.”

Glasgow Warriors coach Al Dickinson has called for a step up in performance for the 1872 Cup second leg at Murrayfield. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

A sold-out Scotstoun was raucous on Friday night, with the home support offering noisy backing to their team. It was hard to detect too many travelling fans and Boyle’s try was met with almost total silence. Dickinson was delighted with the way the Glasgow fans got behind them and is hopeful they will travel in numbers to Murrayfield, taking advantage of the larger capacity to even things up.

“They’d had a few beers I reckon!” he smiled. “Scottish people don’t tend to be too vocal unless they’ve had a few. So it’s great we’ve got these games at this time of year when people are off work generally and a bit more relaxed. The more vocal they can make it the better. I’m sure there will be a few more Edinburgh supporters than Glasgow but hopefully the Glasgow tribe will truck through and make a bit more noise.”

While you have to go back to Boxing Day 2016 for the Warriors’ last victory over Edinburgh at Murrayfield, they won at the national stadium as recently as December 16 when their Challenge Cup tie against Perpignan was moved to the capital due to Scotstoun being frozen. Dickinson thinks the experience will stand them in good stead for the second leg.

“Especially for the guys who hadn’t played there before, that was huge,” said the coach. “It was a bit of a last-minute thing but it’s good to have played and won there recently, we know the surroundings so it’s a little bit more familiar. We just have to get better on the road, that’s a huge focus for us. We’ve not been that great at it.”