Glasgow Warriors 22

Connacht 19

By JOHN FALLON IN GLASGOW

STAND-in skipper Joe Joyce said it was bitterly disappointing that Connacht didn’t take their Challenge Cup form into the URC as they fell to a fourth league defeat in a row and their sixth in their last seven games as their quest for a first win in Scotstoun goes on.

Connacht may well point to having half a dozen players away with Ireland but Glasgow had 16 in the Scottish camp and the champions still managed to carve out a win.

“We have shown the last two weeks we have it in us but it is about putting that out all the time,” said Joyce. “The top teams show their personality and their top game every week.

“We have showed it the last two weeks and then we have dropped off again. We have got a break now and when we come back, it is about putting our best selves out there.”

Connacht have three weeks now to dwell on this before hosting Cardiff in a dress rehearsal for a Challenge Cup knockout game that they simply have to win now and progress deep into that competition or this season, with probably the strongest squad they have assembled, will be a total disaster.

But their hopes of a top half finish in the URC and a place in next season’s Champions Cup is doomed and that will be mathematically confirmed over the next few rounds.

Joyce said they laboured for scores while at the same time coughing up plenty to the home side. “We felt we had to work incredibly hard for all our points and some of the tries we gave them were soft.

“In that second half with 20 minutes left, we should have got excited. We had an opportunity to come here to the champions and win, but we tensed up, we were a bit naïve and made too many mistakes.

“Credit to Glasgow, they are a tough side and make you work at every collision and test you at every breakdown. But we need to grow in the big moments. We had a 100% lineout but in the big moments, we had two mauls on their line and we dropped the ball in the maul.

“We were lacking a bit of street-smarts there. We lost the big moments so had to work incredibly hard and we didn’t get the win. It is a frustrated changing room,” said Joyce.”

Connacht failed to make early pressure count and it was Glasgow who struck first with a penalty from skipper Duncan Weir after Joyce was pinged for offside.

But then David Hawkshaw charged down a clearance and got in for the first of his two tries. However, they failed to build on it and Glasgow replied with Sebastian Cancelliere speeding in under the posts and Weir converting.

Pictured: Connacht’s David Hawkshaw whose two tries failed to halt their poor away form against Glasgow Warriors on Sunday.