WELL, that was unexpected. When I switched on the television coverage of last night's Glasgow v Edinburgh 1872 Cup match, saw the rain bucketing down, I thought: “this isn't going to be much of a game.” How wrong I was, that one was an absolute belter.
It's an often unspoken facet of any form of football – the team with the better defence tends to win the game. In any 80 minutes, both teams will have chances to score, but, the side which defends its line better tends to come out on top. And, last night, Glasgow's defence was first-rate.
Not that Edinburgh defended badly, The fact it finished one try per side shows how good the work off the ball was. In the end, however, Glasgow were the more-disciplined team, conceding fewer penalties to clinch the victory.
One of the worrying aspects of the high number of penalties which the capital outfit committed was – it was the senior players who gave away the bulk of the penalties. Particularly concerning for me is that Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie has become something of a penalty generator in recent weeks.
Hopefully it's simply a case of him trying too hard and come the Six Nations he will have calmed down.
I have in recent blogs written of my concerns that Matt Fagerson and Jack Dempsey find it hard to work effectively in the same back row. This seemed to me to be less of an issue on Friday night. Perhaps it is simply that Glasgow is evolving under Franco Smith and the players are starting to sort things out as the Head Coach wants. Smith has certainly, to my mind, been a breath of fresh air at Scotstoun. I sense this team is going places.
Obviously the Edinburgh guys will be gutted at losing this one, but, Glasgow, while ahead at “half-time” know they are in for another difficult shift in the capital next Friday. Edinburgh are struggling at the moment, with so-many key players missing.
Mind you, I felt too, one or two of Edinburgh's supposed bigger men were anonymous at Scotstoun. I am, for instance, starting to worry that Duhan van der Merwe might be one of those occasional 'supernovas' who burst onto the scene, are outstanding for a short while, but, quickly vanish.
Two of the less-feted Edinburgh players impressed me. OK, his inexperience was highlighted a couple of times in the second half, but, after getting his eleventh hour call-up, I thought young Harry Patterson had a smashing first start, while Cammy Scott, when he came off the bench, didn't look too shabby.
On the Glasgow side, Jamie Bhatti put in a smashing 80 minute performance on the loose-head side of the front row, while in midfield, Tom Jordan and Stafford McDowall once again enhanced their growing reputations.
Time was, the Inter-City was one of the shake-down trials for the national side. Certainly Gregor Townsend was in the main stand on Friday, but, I doubt if he learned anything which he didn't already know – as injury and squad rotation denied the crowd some head-to-heads which might have been significant in the evolution of the Six Nations squad.
Finally, the television talking heads did a good job. Jim Hamilton, we know, is a class act, as is John Barclay, while Mossy Paterson continues to evolve as The Establishment's Tribune to the Plebs. Good to see the under-utilised and highly-professional Paul Mitchell involved – but, a major question: where was Dougie? It just didn't seem right, a Glasgow v Edinburgh game without The Drummer anchoring the broadcast.
SINCE I have been promoting such a move for a while now, it ill-becomes me to criticise World Rugby's decision to try to speed-up the game, by introducing a 'shot clock' for goal kicks, and to finally crack down on the 'form a scrum within 30 seconds' law.
Both initiatives will come into force for the Six Nations. However, the timing appears to me to be something of a knee-jerk reaction to FIFA introducing similar legislation, to cut-out time-wasting, at the recent World Cup in Qatar.
I still believe we should be looking at the overall “ball-in-play time.” The crowds nowadays pay dearly to watch top-flight rugby, so, they are entitled to see 80 minutes of rugby, not 35 squashed in between scrum re-sets, conferences to decide where to throw line-out ball and lengthy pre-kick rituals.
The answer is surely to introduce official time-keepers. The guy with the official stop watch starts it on the referee's whistle, but, stops it when the ball goes dead, or the ref stops play. That way, even if it takes a couple of hours to do it, we get 80 minutes of play.
We could even have, as in boxing, a second time-keeper to look after stoppage times. He could ensure play resumed within the statutory 30 seconds after a scrum or line-out was called; that kickers got the job done within the prescribed time limits, and that scrum-halves box kicked or cleared the ball within the five seconds of being told to: “use it.”
If World Rugby is going to really speed things up, then, I think such further changes are required.
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