Battling Connacht fall to Glasgow’s Warriors

The three-game winning run of Connacht came to an end on Friday when they lost 39-21 away to Glasgow Warriors.

In a high scoring duel, the Warriors outgunned Connacht by five tries to three at Scotstoun in the Guinness Pro 12, but Pat Lam’s men will still take some positives from their first defeat of the season.

Gregor Townsend’s side are now well established as a leading force in this competition, his innovative transformation of the long time strugglers has Scottish rugby folk full of hope and enthusiasm and the low budget transformation is acting as an inspiration to many sides across Europe, including Connacht.

The Warriors are probably a couple of years down the line in terms of development though and that told in the closing quarter when Connacht had them in a small bit of a bind on the scoreboard. The hosts demonstrated their ability to carve out some impressive scores during that period and saw the contest through to the end, taking the maximum five points to go into an outright league in the standings.

For Connacht, the three try haul on what might well be their most testing away trip of the season will be the source of some encouragement. They trailed by 17-7 at the break, conceding a late first half having battled very well against the influential wind.

The strong second half showing from Pat Lam’s side put them in a position where, with five minutes to go, they were trailing by 11, but chasing a try that would have secured at least one and possible a two bonus points had they held the margin within seven.

However, a mistimed pass was intercepted on the home 22 and led to a breakaway try leaving them with nothing to show from a stern effort. Connacht’s scores came from a penalty try, a Darragh Leader score and a Dave McSharry effort.