Glasgow hoping to see the end of losing streak
By Lewis Stuart



WHEN is a dead rubber not a dead rubber? When Glasgow are playing. After 13 straight defeats in the Heineken Cup — the second-longest losing streak in the tournament’s history — defeats in their last five games in all competitions, and an embarrassing display of ineptitude against Leinster in Dublin last week, tomorrow’s match is one they must win.
Bourgoin, Glasgow’s opponents, have admitted that they see the game more as a training run before they get back to serious action in the French league and, like Glasgow, they have elected to rest players. Also, like the Scots, they have injury worries and a history of failure on the road, losing 53-7 at Leinster this season, a result that eclipses even Glasgow’s 46-22 failure last week.



Coincidentally, Bourgoin are the last team Glasgow beat in the Heineken Cup, a controversial 13-12 victory in December 2002, and they badly need a repeat of that gritty, battling performance in adversity. Even the younger members of the team are having to wake up to the fact that in professional sport, careers are on the line once a side starts sliding.

For Steve Swindall, the 23-year-old flanker, the key is getting those first couple of wins to kickstart the side. “It is all about getting wins under the belt. Winning is a habit and it is one that we do not have at the moment,” he said. “We have to build up a rhythm, we have to get a win. It is a young team and it is not that we are not performing, but we have been making silly mistakes.

“I was out in France for the first match against Bourgoin, so I have a good idea what to expect — they are a big, tough outfit, it will be a good test for us. We don’t want to go through the Heineken Cup without a win, as we did last season. We have to generate a bit of respect.”

Swindall knows what it takes — he was one of the young players emerging from youth rugby when Glasgow Hawks went through the same transition in the domestic league, and could see for himself how the club was transformed from one that hoped it might win games to one that expected to win them. It is something that the professional side have yet to master, and with eight of the present Scotland squad playing for Glasgow, pressure will soon turn on the coaches if they do not get there soon.

The real problem is that when things get tough, Glasgow fall apart: if they don’t cruise it, they lose it. They have not won a close encounter for ten months. In the 13 games last season in which less than a score divided the sides, Glasgow lost nine and drew one. This season they have lost all six and Bourgoin will be confident that if they can keep the scores close going into the final quarter, they will get their first European away win in more than three years.

It is easy to suggest it is a Scottish fault, but it is a trick that Edinburgh appear to have mastered, and they are heading for London Wasps this afternoon looking for a double over the English champions as a result. Even when it looked as though they would throw away the reward for their performance in the home tie, they kept plugging away and Simon Webster claimed the victory with an injury-time score.

For Alastair Kellock, the stand-in captain with Chris Paterson sick, it is a golden opportunity to show the strength and confidence that the side is generating. “It would be brilliant to go down there and get a result. Their set-piece is very good but last time we managed to hold their scrum and pinch a few in the lineout and we will be aiming to do at least as well again. If we can get parity in possession, there is no reason we cannot win,” he said.

Both teams have made half a dozen changes from the sides that played last weekend, but with both clubs facing two months without leading players, those on show know that a good performance today will earn them a run of matches.

”We need to find a complete 80 minutes,” Kellock said. “It would be great to prove we can compete with the best.”

This article was posted on 21-Jan-2006, 00:48 by Hugh Barrow.