Edinburgh Back in Fourth As Glasgow Fail To Ignite

Edinburgh blasted the Dragons with a bonus-point victory at Murrayfield this weekend but Glasgow failed to do them a favour by beating an out-of-sorts Ospreys team.

They did deny them a bonus point but the game was marred by Max Evans going off on a stretcher with what looked like a nasty knee injury and another schizophrenic refereeing performance from Irishman George Clancy.

Ruaridh Jackson looked inventive at 10 and kicked most of his points and Lome Fa-Atau had a pretty good game on the opposite wing from Thom Evans.

I have to say that Andrew Henderson looked pretty off-peak when he came off the bench with a couple of poor and late challenges—one of which he would have been carded for if Clancy wasn’t obsessing over sending off as many props as possible.

The Ospreys now move third, equal on points with Leinster. Edinburgh can regain second if both those teams lose next weekend and they manage to beat Cardiff in Cardiff. Unlikely, I know. But Cardiff have a midweek game and must be on their last legs by now—paying for the silly Anglo Welsh Cup.

Meanwhile, Leinster face the Dragons but Ospreys have to play Munster. So third could be on and they are guaranteed to at least equal their best ever finish of fourth.

While he was always an outside chance to be called up to the Lions as a replacement for the injured Tom Shanklin—and it was interesting to hear Will Greenwood mention him as a possibility—this will almost certainly rule Maximus out.

In the same game though, James Hook looked pretty good from inside centre, and he might give the Lions some fly-half cover too.

With Jamie Roberts going off injured in the Munster match last night too the Lions could be looking at another replacement in the centre.

Speaking of which, the Sunday Times reported that former Lions scrum half and backs coach Rob Howley was dispatched to watch Chris Cusiter in Perpignan this weekend—bit of a shame as he didn’t seem to get on the pitch.

Ian Macgeechan went to watch Danny Care who didn’t have the greatest game either. No word if anyone was watching Blair, as we await the rumoured announcement this week.

UPDATE: The Times is now reporting that Rob Howley was in the crowd for the Edinburgh match, which seems more likely. Someone (in the Murdoch empire) got their info wrong.