Glasgow head coach Gregor Townsend wants referees to clamp down on the “cheap shots” he feels are spreading throughout rugby after the controversial decision not to cite Treviso full-back Jayden Hayward in last week’s Guinness PRO12 game.
Warriors players were incensed by Hayward leading with the forearm on a grounded Tommy Seymour after the Scotland wing had scored a length-of-the-field try as Glasgow maintained theirwinning start to the PRO12 season and mystified that no further action was taken by the commissioners.
Ahead of the visit to a sell-out Kingspan stadium in Belfast, as Glasgow seek to cement their position at the top of the table against Ulster, Townsend said there was a disturbing growing trend for contact after the ball is gone or play is dead.
“It does seem that more players aregetting taken out after they pass the ball. It’s been particularly so for our scrum-halves, especially Niko (Matawalu),” he added.
“We, as a club, hope this is not a trend for players being taken out illegally or affected by foul play when they are not involved.”
Last week’s contact on Seymour, at best a petulant reaction by the New Zealander Hayward, brought no rebuke.
“It looked to all the players on the field that it was a bit of a cheap shot,” said Townsend. “The citing officials look at that and work out whether it was worth a red card, that is the only way you can cite.
“A decision was made not to cite there but all of us in rugby want to make sure the cheap shots, players getting taken out of the ball, is taken away from the game.”
In common with his usual rotation Townsend has made 13 changes one positional with Seymour switching wings for the visit to Ulster. Only centre Peter Horne and skipper Josh Strauss remain from the Italy trip.
The coach has taken the chance to start Finn Russell and Sean Maitland for the first time this season and picks what most judge to be his first choice back row, Rob Harley and Chris Fusaro joining Strauss as the Warriors take on arguably their toughest assignment of the season so far.
“Winning builds confidence and we have been on a good run (just one loss in 15 PRO12 games) since the Six Nations last year,” continued Townsend.
“We have been taking opportunities and that is what we have seen in the last couple of games.
“We have not been at the same level in terms of overall performance that we were in the first half of the opener againstLeinster but we have been taking opportunities so the players are confident.”
Fusaro agreed that Glasgow so far this season had been scoring better than they’d been playing.
“That’s probably fair. We have picked out a few things that we need to work on,” he said.
“We are proud of our defence, so to leak a few tries does hurt and that is something we have been trying to rectify.
“The attack side of things has been going really well. We are putting 40 points on teams and that is really good.”
It was also necessary to keep themomentum of this start to the season going ahead of Bath’s visit in the European Rugby Champions’ Cup next week.
“To win the first six games goinginto Europe against a very strongBath team, who have been outstanding in the Premiership, will help a lot,” added Fusaro.
“We haven’t looked beyond Ulster at that game yet but it will be at the back ofpeople’s minds seeing the results thatthey (Bath) have been posting week in, week out.
“Gregor and the whole coaching staffare good at keeping the focus on aweek-by-week basis and what team we are playing.
“That is hugley important, as the PRO12 is a very competitive league and if you let your focus stray it can cost you forexample Ulster losing to Zebre just a couple of weeks ago.”
Maitland returns after an achilles tendon problem but has played two comeback games without incident, while Russell has come off the bench twice since he returned from injury.
Glasgow: Peter Murchie; Sean Maitland, Mark Bennett, Peter Horne, TommySeymour; Finn Russell, Henry Pyrgos; Gordon Reid, Fraser Brown, Euan Murray; Tim Swinson, Leone Nakarawa; RobHarley, Chris Fusaro, Josh Strauss (capt).
Replacements: Hall, Yanuyanutawa, Fagerson, Gray, Ashe, Matawalu, Downey, and Lamont.
stscott@thecourier.co.uk