Glasgow Face Second Newcastle Clash After Bizarre 2-0 Scoreline

Glasgow Tigers HC Ian Cochrane chats to us about the closely matched back-to-back games...

When the results started pinging in last weekend, there was one score that raised eyebrows around the country: Glasgow 2 – 0 Newcastle.

The result looks like it came in by accident from another sport. In fact, Glasgow Tigers overcame Newcastle Raiders by a single safety, registered just before half time, in a grinding deadlock in the North East.

With driving rain and a strong crosswind hampering both sides’ passing games, the game was duked out at ground level. The Tigers did run the ball into the end zone on their first drive only to see it called back for holding on a receiver, and in the end the game hinged on two failed punts either side of half time.

At the business end of the first half, Glasgow’s defence had Newcastle pinned down near their own goal line, and by using their time outs to prevent the clock running down to half time, they forced their opponents to try and punt, and in such close quarters the punter stepped out the back of the end zone to concede the only points of the game. Newcastle’s best chance to hit back came in the third quarter when Glasgow’s long snapper missed the punter and gifted them the ball deep in the red zone, but they were unable to capitalise.

“As a coach, this is my 9th season, and I haven’t had back-to-back games before.”

This Sunday, the teams will face off again, this time on Glasgow’s home turf, in the first back-to-back matchup of this season. With very little time for the sides to adapt or redesign their game plans, we can reasonably expect another hard-fought contest.

“As a coach, this is my 9th season, and I haven’t had back-to-back games before,” said Glasgow Head Coach Ian Cochrane. “Part of it was the weather, I’ve looked at the weather for this weekend up here and it’s supposed to be pretty bad again, but there’s other things at play – there were a few people unable to make that game that will be there this weekend. If it’s dry I think we will give them more of a run for their money because our passing game will be more viable.

“Our first game of the season was against Lancaster and it was a very different game, and Newcastle have a lot more tricks in their bag that we have to contend with. We didn’t really get out of second gear against Lancaster, but Newcastle were very pumped up for the game and very psyched and we came in a little bit flat and that’s the thing that we’ve worked on this week.”

Having lost out on Premier League promotion to Sheffield Hallam in last season’s play-off final, Glasgow made a strong start this term with that convincing 36-0 win over Lancaster, and although the narrow Newcastle win could be regarded as a stutter, they should be encouraged by their ability to grind out the result. Coach Cochrane, whose association with the club stretches back to the late 1990’s when he arrived in Glasgow as a foreign student from Canada, says the team had a productive preseason and is focused on going all the way.

“Because we won’t play the likes of University of the West of Scotland or any of the Edinburgh teams, we had a lot of offers for preseason scrimmages that we would not otherwise have had. Because we’re not in the same division, all the teams that are close to us were happy to help us warm up. We’ve been able to have a lot of practice against other teams that wasn’t just O vs D.

“Stirling’s up in the Premier League and we’re in Div 1, it shows that there’s relative strength up north of the border, and obviously it costs us more in travel going down to England, but it’s all about being challenged, and playing against similar calibre teams so that you are pushing yourselves and bettering yourselves.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope we could get to the final and get promoted, as improving on your last season is always everybody’s base goal.”