Glasgow 28-38 Stade Rochelais

The opening ten minutes of this Heineken Champions Cup fixture were pretty eventful as you’d expect from a game where Glasgow Warriors were in front of their home fans, still in the hunt for further European action and looking to recover from a bruising capitulation last weekend.

Sadly for the Warrior fans, the main event was a Fraser Brown yellow card, the skipper brainlessly pulling down the maul as it rumbled ominously towards the Glasgow line. It was a professional foul of the kind that perhaps there have been too many of for Scotland coach Gregor Townsend’s liking?

In saying that, it should probably have been served with a side order of Penalty Try so Karl Dickson’s refusal to award that perhaps vindicated the Glasgow hooker’s indiscretion when there was no immediate try-scoring revenge for the French.

The second ten minute spell saw Ronan O’Gara’s La Rochelle side start to make the most of their dominance to that point. It began with a penalty kick to even the scores and was capped with a Raymond Rhule try, a super touchline conversion by Poppelin opening up the lead that La Rochelle arguably deserved.

Well marshalled by Ali Price and under the watchful eye of new defence coach Peter Murchie, Glasgow were doing a lot of defending – probably too much – but on a rare incursion into the opposition half there was another chance for Ross Thompson to snaffle back another penalty to keep the scores close.

With teams increasingly backing their ability to go to the corner and profit from it (except for viewers in Scotland), Thompson illustrated the usefulness of having a kicker who can keep the scoreboard moving. It was something the opposition coach knew all about.

This was a bitty game and it took almost half an hour for Glasgow’s mostly international pack to put the squeeze on the massive French props in the first scrum (both Brown and Oli Kebble were left out of the Scotland squad earlier in the week).

Otherwise though, the Warriors were often riding their luck as passes went to ground and the back three were once again underused. But Thompson took the points on every visit into the 22 and by 33mins they were only a point adrift to last years Top 14 and Heineken Cup finalists.

Josh Mckay made a meal of more ball-fumbling, this time from the French side, that saw him and Kyle Steyn free and clear but after a bullocking run from Jack Dempsey went within feet of the line, the net result was possession in their own half after their very own pass to no one (McKay again) was hoofed up the pitch by Pierre Boudehent.

Thus Glasgow spent the remaining minutes defending their line, and were unable to stop openside (and brother of Pierre) Paul Boudehent from dotting down off the back of a lineout drive.

Half-time: Glasgow 9-15 Stade Rochelais

Josh McKay made amends for that poor end to the first half with a winger’s finish to Ross Thompson’s pass that gave him plenty of work to do in terms of distance, but he had the pace for the run in to the corner. The young standoff converted McKay’s try to inch the Warriors into the lead.

It didn’t last too long though, as French hooker Pierre Bougarit barreled through lacklustre tackling from Scotstoun golden boys Matt Fagerson and Rory Darge for a very soft try that put the visitors right back in charge.

The ever fired up George Turner and Jamie Bhatti came off the bench at 47mins and Glasgow saw an immediate benefit, or so it seemed. Earning a reward from the whistle well into La Rochelle’s half, this time though they kicked the penalty for the corner and almost immediately everyone around Scotstoun regretted it. Again.

Slack handling in a promising attack let Brice Dulin hoof the ball clear and after a bit of football, Pierre Boudehent gathered once it made Glasgow’s 22 to scamper in unopposed.

Were Glasgow going to be guilty of a final half hour collapse like we saw against Exeter?

At 16-32 it looked like they might; La Rochelle had the bonus point in the bag and Poppelin was content to kick penalties to keep his side firmly in control. It was very O’Gara, although the one he missed was perhaps not.

As Gregory Alldritt was sent to the bin on 67 minutes, George Turner continued to give Glasgow some badly-needed direction but they couldn’t get the scoreboard moving in their favour.

Glasgow scored twice late in the game (once La Rochelle were down to 13 men as Dillyn Leyds joined Alldritt on the sidelines), with two tries for debutant back Ollie Smith. One came off a simple pass from George Horne and the other a neat grubber and dive after Turner lost the ball in contact, but by then it was too little too late as the desire for any sort of point forced them to chase. Despite that late rally, they ultimately fell short.

Against quality opposition, that’s two weekends in a row that the Warriors have looked ineffectual with an all international pack, inept across the backline and dropped off badly late in the game.

What is going on at Scotstoun?

SRBlog Player of the Match: Ross Thompson kicked very well and put McKay away for his try well but too often received the ball going backwards; not entirely his fault. Aside from failing to defend the soft try, Rory Darge continued to impress (Zander Fagerson was also good) but George Turner was probably the most effective Glasgow player despite only playing for half an hour. Yup, it was like that.

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