Glasgow v Connacht: Five takeaways as Irish ‘mauled to death’ and Bundee Aki suffers another ‘lippy’ outburst
Connacht's Bundee Aki and, inset, Dan and Stuart Lancaster
After a deserved 36-19 win for Glasgow over Connacht in Friday night’s URC fixture at Scotstoun, Planet Rugby selects five takeaways from the round three action.
The top line
19 weeks after these clubs clashed at Scotstoun in a tense URC quarter-final that was won 33-21 by the hosts, Glasgow prevailed again in stormier conditions.
That balmier late May clash was a match-up between the league’s first- and eighth-placed sides following the end of the 2025/26 regular season. Here, with two rounds completed in the new campaign, it was fifth hosting 10th, but the outcome was the same as five months ago.
It was no surprise – it was at Firhill way back in September 2010 when Connacht last won away to Glasgow, so this latest outcome was merely adding another L to an already lengthy list of deflating results, only this time the visitors were mauled to death as four of the five Glasgow tries stemmed from the maul.
The Warriors were forced into a pre-match reshuffle. With the ill Kyle Rowe dropping out, originally selected scrum-half Jamie Dobie switched to the wing and George Horne was promoted from the bench.
Connacht started the brighter and while two penalties given up at the breakdown were an initial frustration in the opposition 22, there was no stopping Sean Jansen in the 16th minute on second phase after an offside penalty against Dan Lancaster.
An off-feet ruck intervention, though, from Mack Hansen provided Glasgow with their first invite into the visitors’ 22 and the situation ended with Gregor Hiddleston’s 20th minute unconverted maul try.
A scrum penalty win booted down the touchline was the prompt for the even meatier maul that produced their follow-up try 13 minutes later, a 30-plus seconds shunt travelling from about 18 metres out and leaving Rory Darge celebrating the converted score and a 12-7 lead.
It got better before the interval for the Darge-inspired Warriors. A third Connacht infringement in quick succession resulted in Sam Illo’s sin-binning, and the outcome was Hiddleston touching down off a maul bolstered by several backs joining.
This 12-point, 19-7 point gap soon widened when successive Lancaster and Dobie kicks left Josh McKay claiming the bonus-point try on 43 minutes, but the 26-7 advantage was trimmed four minutes later with Josh Ioane finishing a lengthy Connacht attack.
It meant the sin bin period ended 14-7 to Glasgow, and the riposte clearly awoke Ioane’s attacking senses as he was racing over again in the 60th minute for an unconverted try that left it 26-19.
Connacht’s comeback, though, was swiftly wrecked by the carded Josh Murphy’s lack of a wrap tackling Seb Stephen. Down a forward, what developed was predictable as Glasgow kicked to the corner and mauled over for Stephen’s 65th-minute try.
Fourteen points up, the hosts complicated things with a 73rd minute yellow card for Scott Cummings. But having clung on for a draw last weekend against Ulster when finishing with 13 players, they had good practice in this situation and they saw out the danger without conceding any bonus points.
This was helped by Bundee Aki’s penalised verbal outburst to the referee, and then Lancaster’s clock-in-the-red penalty kick.
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Shaky Irish set-piece
This match’s video analysis won’t be an easy watch for new Connacht scrum coach Trevor Woodman and John Muldoon, their lineout and maul/forwards coach.
Woodman, the 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning prop with England, was recruited from Gloucester for this season, but his scrum conceded six penalties in last weekend’s plucky heist at Benetton with Francois van Wyk and Finlay Bealham as its starters, and the coughing up of two more in quick succession at Scotstoun was another wounding episode.
Connacht were still 7-5 ahead when loosehead Billy Bohan was penalised on opposition ball, and with tighthead Illo penalised two minutes later on his team’s own feed, the die was cast for the Glasgow power surge that was two more maul tries before the interval to add to the one that had already got them on the board.
Yes, the maul law tweak has certainly enhanced the odds for the attacking team, but the concession of a hat-trick of maul tries by Connacht in a 24-minute first-half spell that also featured a prop getting sin-binned defending a maul at his try line was bruising.
There was a second-half response, Connacht stealing lineouts on 53 and 63 minutes to prevent Glasgow setting up mauls near the line, and the scrum held its own. That showed they could temporarily fix things on the run, but too much damage had already been done.
There was then further pain with Glasgow scoring their fourth maul try after Connacht decided not to contest the lineout. It was the final blow, and the accompanying irony was that Connacht then failed to profit when a man up later on as they collapsed their own maul when moving forward towards the line.
Lippy Aki blows up again
You would think the public humiliation of copping a four-match ban earlier this year for verbally abusing the match officials would result in Aki buttoning it on the pitch and keeping schtum no matter his perceived injustice. That punishment cost the midfielder his spot in the Ireland Six Nations squad, but Friday’s evidence was that teaching the 36-year-old a lesson isn’t an easy thing.
Just minutes remained at Scotstoun with Connacht frantically trying to engineer the converted try that would have potentially earned their two bonus points – one for scoring four tries and another for losing by seven points. However, Welsh referee Ben Breakspear lost his patience with the Test-level veteran.
With the Irish side trying to wrinkle some space to work the ball not far inside the Glasgow half, the official warned Aki and followed up at a breakdown with a caution that he would penalise him if he chatted to him again.
Surely that was the prompt to zip it, but Aki continued his verbals and Breakspear whistled up to award a penalty to Glasgow rather than allow the play to continue with Hansen just having carried to a ruck about 10 metres inside the opposition half.
That one shrill of the whistle ended Connacht’s hopes of securing any reward from their travels, and some harsh words must be doled out to Aki in the changing room for his latest unprofessional incident.
Dad and lad
Friday was Connacht boss Lancaster’s 57th birthday, but it won’t be fondly remembered by the ex-England coach as the celebration was ruined by his son Dan being on the winning Glasgow side.
They had apparently not spoken to each other this week, and even a meet-up on Thursday for dinner was bereft of rugby chat, but what materialised the following night left the out-half son with all the bragging rights.
So much of the hype in this fixture’s lead-up had been about how new Connacht signing Ciaran Frawley delivered to help the Irish team win last weekend in Italy, but he was eclipsed in Scotland by Lancaster Jnr and the Irishman’s troubled outing was summed up by a terrible pass under pressure flying into touch in the dying minutes.
That will hurt Frawley, especially as Lancaster didn’t have much to do to outshine him on a night that was made for forwards – as seen in Glasgow’s four maul tries. Despite the greasy conditions, the 25-year-old Scotland A international played a critical part in an early contender for try of the season.
He had started the second half with a probing touch finder off his left foot, and he soon followed that with a peerless right-footed cross-kick into Dobie’s breadbasket and the winger’s grubber allowed McKay to go haring in for his score.
So good was that combination that Lancaster’s next involvement was softly knocking on the Connacht restart kick, resulting in the scrum that eventually led to an Irish try back, but that smudge really couldn’t dilute the brilliance of the previous cross-kick.
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Unwanted Glasgow hat-trick
A Glasgow feature in the opening two rounds was their slow starts. They found themselves 0-10 down at Munster on September 26 before they managed to find an attacking pulse, and that annoyance was repeated last weekend when they hosted Ulster. Again, they conceded the opening try and were left trailing 0-7 and 7-12 before raising a proper gallop.
Hopes for getting their lift-off right at the third time of asking against Connacht weren’t helped by an initially shaky lineout, and their defence was forced to absorb a copious amount of pressure in the 22. This eventually resulted in them giving up the opening try, a converted effort from close range following cumulative infringements.
Glasgow’s response was swift, as they were scoring down the other end just three minutes later, but better teams than the trio of Irish sides they have started the season against will surely inflict costlier damage on Franco Smith’s team if the coach doesn’t come up with a ruse to shake up his slumbering starters.