Only Edinburgh’s remarkable victory at Kingsholm on Sunday afternoon so unexpected that it seemed even Alan Solomons, who’d rested several front-line players, was surprised stopped us dusting off the old cracks about Scottish teams being out of Europe by Christmas.
Edinburgh’s victory at Gloucester won’t take them to the quarter-finals, although it does offer up a little hope of a consolation place in the AMLIN Cup to elongate interest beyond March. For Glasgow, no such escape route exists.
This season the next level the Warriors, easily the more successful and consistent of the two Scottish pro teams, were aiming at was a place in the last eight of the Heineken Cup. An AMLIN fall-back was the absolute least of their ambitions.
This was the team that were one take of a sharp pass away from reaching the Rabodirect PRO12 final last year, that arguably played better rugby in the first five months of the year than any club in Europe outside Toulon and Clermont.
Glasgow may still go on to repeat that run this spring head coach Gregor Townsend remarked that his side had more wins now than they did at this time last season but another run at the Rabo playoffs were not what anyone at Scotstoun envisaged this year.
Even pre-Townsend, the Warriors have seemed to have a mental block about Europe. Only in season 2007-08 have they gone into their last pool game with an even realistic chance of last-eight qualification, and that required a bonus point win over Saracens at home. They lost, somewhat predictably.
Being drawn with champions Toulon this year was a bit of a blow to aspirations, but the last fortnight’s two games against Cardiff, with three wins in their last nine games coming in and a host of regular first XV players out injured, should have been the springboard and the Warriors should have been aiming to win both.
Instead, both games were lost in feckless and embarrassing fashion. Caught playing a gameplan utterly unsuited to the opposition at the Arms Park, they compounded that a week later at Scotstoun by playing the same way when both opposition AND conditions dictated something less ambitious.
The distraction of the alleged assault case for three leading players one of whom, Ryan Wilson, was formally charged last week is really a red herring. It’s simple tactics and execution that are the issue.
That and the fact that teams have done homework on Glasgow’s gamebreakers. Niko Matawalu and Josh Strauss, revelations in the first half of the year, are being marked aggressively. It’s no coincidence Niko’s best performances this season at scrum-half have been against Toulon and Exeter, two teams who didn’t see him last season.
Of their best home-grown players, Stuart Hogg has been struggling with form and injury, Alex Dunbar has missed time, Peter Horne has been out for the season and missed much more than many expected.
Whisper it to his many devotees, but there’s also a sign the club’s captain and long-time talisman Al Kellock is struggling. If Tim Swinson and Jonny Gray were fit, surely Big Al wouldn’t merit a starting place on form.
Edinburgh meanwhile remain a work in progress after Sunday’s result, which should at least be a welcome sign that new coach Solomons was leading the team in the right direction.
However the fact that it was a makeshift side only Ross Ford, Grant Gilchrist and Tom Brown survived from the team that got to the last four of the Heineken Cup just two years ago complicates matters.
The experiment of Greig Tonks at 10 – allowing Jack Cuthbert to play so assuredly at 15 – certainly worked, although it’s questionable whether this is a long-term option. Cornell du Preez has been an outstanding signing, although the jury is out on the flood of other acquisitions.
Leinster on Friday and the 1872 Cup games against Glasgow will give a better idea of where Edinburgh are really headed. Given Glasgow’s current malaise, regaining the old Cup may not be beyond the capital side.