Glasgow v Bulls: Five takeaways as Warriors suffer ‘brutal, reputation-damaging’ exit after ‘wasting’ 18-point lead
Francois Klopper scores for the Bulls and, inset, Glasgow's Jamie Dobie has his run ended
Following a dramatic 22-21 win for the Bulls over Glasgow in the United Rugby Championship semi-final, here’s our five takeaways from the tension-filled cross-hemisphere contest at Murrayfield.
The top line
This knockout collision between the 2024 URC finalists, a showpiece the Warriors won in Pretoria, was the renewal of a burgeoning rivalry that had heated up only nine weeks ago when the Bulls succumbed 25-21 in a close-run Champions Cup round of 16 clash at Scotstoun.
However, by the time Andy Brace’s final whistle sounded on Saturday not long after 4pm, the bragging rights were spectacularly reversed in a vim and vigour contest in which the South Africans fell 21-3 behind with less than a half-hour gone, had secured a 21-22 lead by the 53rd minute and then proceeded to choke the life out of the hosts in the scoreless stalemate that followed.
The first half was a tale of two yellow cards against the visitors, one that severely hurt the Bulls and the second which gave them life despite the numerical imbalance against them.
Having just given his team the lead with a penalty, Handre Pollard was sin-binned on nine minutes for a deliberate knock-on. When he returned, his team was 14-3 down after Glasgow moved the ball to the edge to create two well-taken opportunities for Kyle Steyn on 15 and 19 minutes.
That advantage was then transformed into an 18-point lead by a 25th-minute penalty try. However, rather than seeing the yellow awarded against Ruan Nortje at the maul providing Glasgow with the opening to go and kill off the contest, they ‘lost’ this 10-minute card passage 7-0 with Johan Grobbelaar’s 32nd-minute burrow over.
That nourished the South African soul, and things dramatically fell their way further early on in the second half in another card story. With Glasgow’s Scott Cummings binned, Embrose Papier sniped over for an unconverted try, and the lead was then secured when Cameron Hanekom’s bulldozing run ended with Francois Klopper’s converted try.
The remaining 27 minutes became project starve-Glasgow-of-possession. There were no further points, but the importance of Pollard missing penalty kicks on 66, 69 and 73 minutes was that it sapped Scottish resolve and the death knell sounded for the hosts with Stedman Gans’ breakdown penalty win. The raging Bulls surge on.
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The Horne effect
Glasgow’s preparation was hit pre-game, the Scottish club coming clean on social media about an hour before kick-off that George Horne had failed a fitness test on the right hand injured last weekend and would be replaced in the starting XV by Jamie Dobie.
The reshuffle would have ignited home fan trepidation and with the nervous way the second half panned out, they were right to be anxious. Franco Smith had described Horne during the week as “unique”, “a brilliant competitor” and someone who “gets the best out of everybody around him”, and those characteristics were missed in the second period when a cool head was needed to provide reassurance.
This didn’t mean the defeat was Dobie’s fault. Far from it, even though it wasn’t since February 14, when a shoulder injury was sustained in Scotland’s Calcutta Cup win over England, that he had last played a match, amounting to a 16-week lay-off. He immediately has his first clearance kick charged down, but the Glasgow attack hummed during the opening half hour, and it was Dobie’s 14th-minute space-finding kick that was crucial in securing territory for their opening try.
It was the collective of what happened when the South African pressure came on them that cost them the semi-final. Their nerves kicked in, demonstrating that they hadn’t learned the lesson of eight weeks ago, when they were dumped out of the Champions Cup.
That No.2 draw seeding was wasted with a quarter-final defeat at home at Scotstoun to Toulon, and Glasgow now blew up again, failing to make good their No.1 URC ranking and locking in the first league final to be held in Scotland since 2019.
An example of how they were not thinking clearly happened when they fell behind to the 12 points conceded during Cummings’ card. They had an immediate opportunity to retake the lead, but they spurned the posts with a penalty chance from distance in favour of a kick to touch from where the resulting maul was dispiritingly choked.
Contrast that with what the Bulls did. No sooner were they awarded penalties than they were pointing at the posts. While Pollard missed all three, it kept the Warriors pinned back in their own half and helped to evaporate the time left on the clock.
Glasgow’s handling also lost its initial accuracy and their overall looseness, which rendered them scoreless for the 55 minutes after they had gone 21-3 up, was damning. This was a brutal, reputation-damaging loss for them, wasting an 18-point lead and home advantage.
Glasgow Warriors v Bulls: Result, scorers, match stats, line-ups
Tackle machine
Whereas Glasgow terribly exhibited their lack of learning about how to put their knockout rugby seeding to best use, the Bulls showed that they can now roll with the punches better than they did a few months ago.
What ultimately did for them in their four-point Champions Cup loss in Glasgow was their indiscipline. Despite closing to within one point, 22-21, with three minutes remaining, their energy in the windy conditions had been drained by the concession of 13 penalties and a yellow card to eight Scottish penalties.
Their behaviour hadn’t initially greatly improved, going by how they were so under the pump at Murrayfield, falling 21-3 behind, losing the penalty count 5-1, and having two players sent to the first half sin-bin. However, having come into the semi-final with 11 wins in 13 matches, the last five arriving on the bounce since their round of 16 cup loss at Glasgow, they showcased excellent composure to not panic in their awkward situation.
Playing with a starting XV featuring 11 Springboks, their response when down to 14 players for a second time – a period they ‘won’ 7-0 0 – and then how they reacted in the 10 minutes when they were up a man – ‘winning’ it 12-0 – highlighted how much they have grown, not only since a SOS was send to SA Rugby HQ in January following a horrible seven-game losing run but in the weeks since their last visit to Scotland.
They owned the second half, intelligently playing cup rugby and getting Glasgow away from the wide-wide approach they had used to devastating effect when profiting during Pollard’s first-half sin-binning. The likes of tackle machine Grobbelaar, Hanekom and Harold Vorster superbly shutting down the hosts and with the penalty count 13-9 against Glasgow at the finish, Bulls’ victory was a thoroughly deserved one.
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Commonwealth Games legacy
What will chasten Glasgow when the dust settles on this latest wounding elimination is that this was a match that should have taken place in their own Scotstoun backyard. They are a team who have used the artificial surface to their benefit on so many occasions, so having to play the semi-final on the Murrayfield grass pitch was a great leveller.
To blame was the long-taken decision that the stadium had to be handed over following last weekend’s quarter-final win over Connacht so that it could be prepared for the upcoming Commonwealth Games, but the legacy of that situation will now be remembered as bad planning on the part of the Warriors.
Going up against a Bulls side containing so many Springboks who have experienced winning at Murrayfield diluted all the fine work over the course of the season to secure top seeding and home advantage for the knockouts. There was double the Scotstoun crowd in attendance in Edinburgh, but the intimidation factor of that ground was lost with wide-open stands and the surface.
No wonder the Bulls stayed so calm. Their reaction, you imagine, would have been very different if they were 21-3 down at Scotstoun. That could well have been Mission Impossible, whereas the situation at Murrayfield was very different. The lesson for Glasgow? Do your season planning much better.
What’s next for the Bull run?
The Bulls are a franchise that get so much flak but when it comes to consistency in this URC, they are showing themselves to be quite an excellent unit. They have yet to lift the trophy, but this away-day heist in Scotland has qualified them for their fourth final in five seasons.
They would have sat back in their Murrayfield dressing room, thrilled with their latest progress to a decider that they will have to wait a few hours to learn where it will be played – either against Leinster in Dublin on June 19 or against the Stormers in Cape Town on June 20 against the Stormers.
A repeat of the 2022 final they lost at the Stormers, or a repeat of last year’s final lost at Leinster. Whatever the outcome, they will feel this is their year.