FOR ME – the highlight of Warriors' magnificent come from behind victory over the Bulls at Scotstoun on Saturday night came some time after the final whistle, via a very magnanimous and dignified summing-up of the game from beaten Bulls Head Coach Johan Ackerman.
We have become so used to Saffas being boorish, myopic and ungracious in defeat: they definitely don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring. But Ackerman was measured, generous in his praise of the winners and totally alien to our image of the Saffas as The English on steroids when reflecting on a defeat.
The game was engrossing and entertaining, a match of two halves, largely courtesy of the weather conditions, with the Bulls on top, when they had the wind at their backs in the first half, before Warriors raged back in the second to take the victory and set up a home quarter-final, against Toulon, back at Scotstoun at the weekend.
Big Stafford McDowall, somewhat controversially selected ahead of British Lion Huw Jones at outside centre, was a deserved Man of the Match, but one or two others of the lesser names pushed him hard: Patrick Shickerling, Alex Samuel, were also in the frame; Ben Afshar did a sterling job when he had to replace the injured George Horne, while Dan Lancaster again impressed at ten.
Given Warriors are currently without one or two full internationalists, this win demonstrated, yet again, how well Coach Franco Smith has worked in assembling a squad able to cope with injuries and Scotland calls. The man is a great coach, who has constructed a squad which believes in him and his processes.
Toulon on Saturday will be anothr tough test for the side, but, having taken down a squad jam-packed with Springboks, and with home advantage, even with their long injury list, why shouldn't Warriors be too concerned about their last eight challenge?
I WOULD love to have been a fly on the wall of the Leinster dressing room at the Aviva on Sunday. Or perhaps not. From what happened in the second half, I sense Leo Cullen used a flame thrower rather than old Fergie's hair dryer on his men.
That Edinburgh were still in the game at the break, having barely got their hands on the ball, spoke volumes about how Leinster had approached that first half. They seemed after their elerctric start, to think they only had to go through the motions to see off their visitors – then kept giving away interception chances, which to be fair, Edinburgh gobbled up with glee – to find themselves in bother.
But, the second half was virtually one-way traffic as Leinster cruised through to claim their expected last eight slot.
Huge kudos to Edinburgh for seizing those first half chances and for never giving up, but, the game finished roughly as we thought it would have before the start.
Mind you, I still think Leinster would have won, even without the help they got from Referee Luke Pearce, who was entirely oblivious to the usual Irish shithousery around the breakdown. This was never more evident than in van der Flier's second-half try, when Doris clearly ran interference to take out three potential Edinburgh defenders, leaving him a clear gap to run into – Pearce did nothing.
ELSEWHERE – I had to laugh at one English social media platform, in which MacMessi was awarded just 2/10 for his performance in Bath's win over Saracens.
Blink and you missed it, but, the try of the game, a Coast to Coast Bath effort, finished-off by scrum-half Ben Spencer, was initiated by Finn, on his own line and under pressure, choosing to, while facing his own line, off-load and stsart the counter-attack with a pass conjoured-up in a flash. I don't think there's another player in these islands who would have done what he did in that instance – that try was probably the turning point in what had, up till then, been a very-close game.
The man is a genius, ordinary does not come into it with him – then, he kicked his goals as usual. OK, overall, it was maybe only a 7.5 or 8/10, but, that degree of effectiveness from Finn is still way above almost every other ten in the game.
There are eight very-good teams left in the main competition: well, seven and Sale, and I am already looking forward to Warriors v Toulon. Bring it on.
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