Rennie insists more to come from Warriors

21 Dec 2019

Glasgow Warriors Head Coach Dave Rennie insists that there is still room for improvement following his side’s victory over Edinburgh this evening, but paid tribute to the ability of his players to see the match out.

A late George Turner try and a crucial turnover from man-of-the-match Zander Fagerson saw the Warriors strike first in this season’s 1872 Cup, as a sold-out Scotstoun crowd of 7,351 roared their team on to victory under the Saturday night floodlights.

“It’s what our boys do,” said Rennie.

“If we’ve got games where we can put the foot on the throat and make it easy for coaches, we tend to not do it!

“I thought it was a real arm-wrestle and both sides defended incredibly well. We created enough opportunities to win the game, though and we finished a couple of those opportunities off.”

Rennie was particularly pleased with how his players negated the Edinburgh game plan, with Tommy Seymour and Ruaridh Jackson in particular ruling the aerial battle against the capital outfit.

“You know Edinburgh are going to kick a lot – they want you to carry a lot of ball back,” explained the Warriors boss.

“I thought we defused their kicking game really well, but I also thought we kicked too much.

“You need to be bold and we missed a couple of chances to hurt them from a long way out, which is unlike us.”

With the two teams set to battle it out again at BT Murrayfield on the other side of the Christmas break, one area of the game in particular is a major focus for Rennie and his coaching staff.

“The penalty count was way too high for us,” he said.

“We weren’t happy with the way we piggy-backed a few penalties and allowed them to gain 80m with ease.

“It’s something we’ll work on and improve upon for next week. We’ll be ready for them.”