Glasgow Warriors lay down URC marker in feisty clash with Leinster

It was a feisty affair, one that ended with Adam Hastings and Rabah Slimani both shown yellow cards right at the death after George Horne’s second try of the game had rounded off the scoring but started the latest bout of pushing and shoving.

It was Leinster’s indiscipline late in the first half, however, that proved to be their downfall on this occasion, the visitors having two players yellow carded in quick succession and Glasgow taking full advantage by running in four tries while Brian Deeny and Rohan Kelleher stewed in the sin-bin.

That was the key phase in a contest that Warriors dominated for long spells but also required them to also put in a stoic defensive shift in the third quarter when Leinster threatened to briefly stage a comeback.

This win over the defending champions strengthens Glasgow’s place at the top of the United Rugby Championship standings and improves their prospects of retaining home advantage throughout the playoffs.

At some point they will likely run into Leinster again but Glasgow head Franco Smith, predictably, was reluctant to consider that prospect.

“I'm not looking too far ahead,” he said. “A lot of things can go wrong, right? Last year we were also sitting second until the last three games and we ended up being fourth. So I'm not going to get ahead of anything here. For now, we just focus on Benetton who performed well tonight against Ospreys.”

Glasgow failed to take advantage of their early dominance and paid the price when Rieko Ioane picked off Kyle Rowe’s pass and fed Josh Kenny who scored in the corner.

Leinster, though, failed to take advantage of that lead, with Deeny the first to head to the sin-bin for a no-arms tackle followed shortly by Kelleher for a high hit on Stafford McDowall.

In between those two transgressions Glasgow claimed their first try when a George Horne tap penalty found its way to Macenzzie Duncan to crash over.

When Leinster then went down to 13, Glasgow piled on the pressure. Horne finished the third after being sent away by a nice combination of passes from McDowall and debutant Johnny Ventisei.

The best try of the night, however, was Warriors’ fourth. Rowe burned Jimmy O’Brien for pace down the line before collecting his own grubber kick to dot down.

Back came Deeny and then Kelleher and, restored to their full complement, Leinster narrowed the gap before half-time when Sam Prendergast fed the returning Hugo Keenan to stroll over.

Glasgow did well to survive a period of sustained Leinster pressure early in the second half and then confirmed the victory when Ollie Smith wriggled his way through for his team’s fifth score.

Ciaran Frawley eventually got one back for Leinster but the last word went to the indefatigable Horne who squeezed over in the corner to seal the win.

“We left unfinished business in Connacht and we challenged ourselves this week to make sure that we get the best version of ourselves for the full 80 minutes,” added Smith. “And I thought that was done well.”