Glasgow grit puts brakes on Cardiff

Cardiff 35 Glasgow 44

On Friday, angry Cardiff fans marched on the club's offices because they hadn't been sent their season tickets. By 5pm yesterday, many were wishing they hadn't bothered.

It takes a special team to score 35 points without looking like winning, but Cardiff, if nothing else, are a special team. Arms Park fans will say their side threw the Celtic League match away, but that is doing a great disservice to a spirited, hard-working Glasgow outfit.

Led by their back row of Gordon Simpson, Donnie McFadyen and Jon Petrie, the Scots never gave up, and kept their heads while those in the other camp were losing theirs.

Cardiff led 27-20 after a dazzling Rhys Williams try in the opening minute of the second half, but then ran out of ideas. Not to mention a working line-out, and handling skills.

Tries to scrum-half Graeme Beveridge and Simpson gave Glasgow the lead, and unlike their opponents, they weren't going to give it up lightly.

The new Cardiff coach Dai Young – perhaps listening to the crowd asking "how many million quid did we pay for this guy?" every time league recruit Iestyn Harris did something – threw his entire bench on in the final 10 minutes. Big mistake.

With the exception of scrum-half Richard Smith, every Cardiff replacement lost the ability to catch the ball, and scoring move after scoring move ended amid 6,500 groans. The clincher was the intercept pass snared by the Glasgow centre Alan Bulloch which took the Scots out to a 44-30 lead.

With Petrie in the sin bin for a professional foul, Cardiff scored through their captain Martyn Williams deep into injury time, but the crowd's pain wasn't over.

Needing the conversion to earn a bonus point, and facing a kick most of the fans would have backed themselves to get over, replacement Nick Robinson sprayed it left.

Monty Python could not have scripted the second half. With 20 internationals in the starting line-ups, and a further nine on the benches, the game promised much. And in terms of tries, it delivered. In terms of skill, well, let's get back to the tries.

Glasgow made a perfect start, retaining possession and marching up the field before a beautiful skip-out pass from the inside-centre Tommy Hayes gave winger Michael Bartlett the space to dive over in the left corner.

Hayes, a Cook Islands international, showed how dangerous he could be this season with a superb touchline conversion, and the underdogs were 7-0 up. Harris narrowed the gap with a simple penalty goal, but the home side fell further behind on the quarter-hour mark when busy flanker McFadyen dove through the remnants of a ruck on the Cardiff line. Hayes' conversion silenced the large home crowd as they saw Glasgow's score tick over to 14 in barely as many minutes.

It didn't take them long to find their voice, though, with Cardiff's scrum-half Ryan Powell, playing his 50th game for the club, scoring a cheeky try from a penalty near the visitors' line, and inside-centre Matt Allen adding a second within moments of the restart after some skilful work from his centre partner Nick Walne.

A Hayes penalty goal levelled the scores at 17-17 after 30 minutes, but Harris wasn't about to concede the goal-kicking battle just yet, and he kicked his fourth goal from four attempts as Cardiff began capitalising on Glasgow mistakes. The half ended on a sour note for the home side, with Emyr Lewis leaving the field clutching a shoulder, and Hayes adding his third penalty goal to level the scores at 20 apiece at the break.

And things got a whole lot worse in the second half.

Cardiff: R Williams; A Sullivan, N Walne, M Allen (J Robinson, 74), C Morgan; I Harris (N Robinson, 72), R Powell (R Smith, 74); T Payne, G Woods (A Lewi,s 15), K Fourie, C Stamatakis, J Tait (R Soden-Taylor, 72), J Brownrigg, E Lewis (R Appleyard 38 (G Powell, 58-61)), M Williams (capt).

Glasgow: S Moffat; M Bartlett, A Bulloch, T Hayes (A Henderson, 60), J Steel (R Kerr, 55); C Howarth, G Beveridge (A Nicol, 55); C Blades, G Bulloch, L Harrison (D Hilton, 60), A Hall, J White (capt), G Simpson, J Petrie, D McFadyen (A Wilson, 55).

Referee: S McDowell (Ireland)