Glasgow didn't get 'rub of the green' in Sharks defeat - Franco Smith

The reigning league champions conceded 12 penalties to the home side’s eight at Hollywoodbets Kings Park Stadium in Durban which allowed stand-off Jordan Hendrikse the chance to kick nine points and also gave the Sharks momentum at key times.

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• Five things we learned as Glasgow fall to Sharks defeat

One of those penalties was against replacement Gregor Brown in the 66th minute when, after Busby had a lengthy chat with TMO Andrew Brace, he decided that the forward’s tackle had been shoulder to the head of Sharks’ number eight Phepsi Buthelezi.

Gregor Brown spent 10 minutes in the sin-bin (Image: SNS) When they were down to 14, Glasgow lost 10 points as the Sharks extended their lead to 28-12 from 18-12 meaning that a late fightback from the Scots earned them two bonus points, but not a precious win against a Springbok-laden home side.

“For me, on the video, it didn't look like it was a yellow card,”  Smith said after the match from Durban regarding the Brown incident.

“We also didn't get the rub of the green, we got penalised and we didn't get many penalties off them.

“We ended up defending a lot in the first part of the game, but with the limited opportunities that we had in the first half we actually scored some very nice tries.

And I think we showed in the last five minutes that if teams are going to allow us to play, then we're really good at it.

“There's always going to be adversity in a game and the way we managed the period when we had a yellow card was good enough. There's always questions to be asked [after games]. but for now, we must just keep on bettering ourselves and it's the right part of the season to learn from these types of situations.”

Two George Horne tries kept the Warriors right in the game at 15-12 down at the interval and there were only three more points added by either side before the Brown yellow card.

In the dying minutes tries from Rory Darge and Johnny Matthews earned the Warriors two bonus points from this attritional battle.

The Glasgow coach was pleased with the fight his side showed to rescue two losing bonus points (Image: SNS) “Obviously, I'm really encouraged by the fact that we kept on playing until the end, that is just the type of people that we have in the squad and I'm really, really proud of the effort they put in,” the head coach stated.

“The two missed conversions make a big difference, we could have just as well have drawn the game.

“I felt they did well to contain us, they didn't give us any lineouts or set piece starts - for example we had just three lineouts in the whole of the first half.

“I have a lot to be proud of, but I feel in general the whole team will have learned something from playing against top quality players. The Springboks that we faced here were really good for the Sharks.

“They played out of their skins, way better than I thought they would be because of the time away [with the national team recently and then transitioning back to club rugby].

“They actually played really, really well and therefore, like our performance, it’s a good point of reference for the rest of the season.”

As was always likely in a match featuring so many South African and Scotland internationals, there were a few tired bodies at the end while loosehead prop Nathan McBeth was forced off with an injury after 29 minutes.

“Nathan McBeth has taken a bit of a bang, here's a lot of bangs, but it was just a classic international game,” Smith explained.

“You have the best players of South Africa playing the best players of Scotland and you always have some knocks.

“Currently, Nathan’s injury is seen as a medial collateral knee ligament problem, but we obviously have to wait for further investigation [to be carried out by the medical staff].”

Next up for Glasgow is the Stormers next Saturday in the Danie Craven Stadium in Stellenbosch.

“I think the confidence in our process will need to continue growing,” Smith said ahead of that round six clash.

“It is good from our perspective to swap the team often to get a lot of players minutes under the belt and to get a lot of players ready for Scotland duties in a couple of weeks' time.

“We've used 35 players now [this season] and I think that has been important [to get minutes into a large number of players’ legs]. but now the continuity from this week into next week is going to be really important and it should make a big difference on the preparations.

“This week it's going to be all about continuity and, obviously, there's a lot of positive lessons to take into the next game week from this weekend.”