Glasgow 10-23 Leinster
Nine wins from nine, this season, and the Leinster train keeps on rolling.
Despite getting off to a slow start and being reduced to 14 men in the first five minutes, the Guinness PRO14 champions got their act together to secure an excellent away win against Glasgow Warriors.
Back in Glasgow for the first time since winning the PRO14 title, in May, the Blues found themselves 10-3 down after Ruairidh Jackson’s second try, on 25 minutes. The Leinster scrum was struggling too and the early signs were all pointing to a home win, but Conor O’Brien and Hugo Keenan, who had been sin-binned early on, came up with two big try assists.
With a lovely offload, O’Brien put Cian Kelleher away for Leinster’s opening try. Two minutes later and it was Keenan’s turn to play provider with a glorious offload of his own. Kelleher again finished off the good work of his teammates.
Cian Kelleher has surely had enough of wee brother Ronán getting all the try-scoring credit! 👏pic.twitter.com/YRtigxgsta
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 30, 2019
Glasgow’s three missed kicks on goal and Leinster’s double strikes led to the champions going in 17-10 ahead at the break.
During the break, Leinster scrum coach Robin McBryde clearly worked with their forwards as there was an instant turnaround in scrummaging fortunes. With Ross Byrne dictating play well and both Rory Molony and Will Connors putting in huge defensive shifts, Leinster began to take control.
Byrne added two second half penalties and Glasgow were left desperately looking for a consolation try to ensure a losing bonus point. As it stood, Fergus McFadden and then Devin Toner – two of the province’s moat experienced players – denied them even that with crucial tackles.
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Barry Murphy, Andrew Trimble and Jerry Flannery look back on all the Champions Cup action and are joined in the House of Rugby studio by Springboks coach Felix Jones.
