Player of the match Briar McNamara believes that Glasgow Warriors can build on their impressive bonus point win over Scottish rivals Edinburgh Rugby and finish this year’s Celtic Challenge competition on a high.
The New Zealand-born centre, who is now eligible to play for Scotland, was at her mercurial best on Saturday at Scotstoun as Glasgow, in their second year of existence, recorded their first ever victory to the delight of the home supporters.
The 2023/24 event featuring Welsh and Irish clubs as well as the Scots was tough for them as were the early games in 2024/25, but they have grown as a unit and thoroughly deserved their 36-17 win as they played with great intensity and purpose.
After the game, McNamara, who plays for Watsonians, told BBC’s Heather Lockhart: “It was a really good performance from us and it is starting to click.
“Our performances have started to improve of late and this game just showed what we can do.
“Credit to everyone, they are putting in the hard work at training and it is definitely paying off.
“We have got to know each other over the last few weeks and have got to know how each other plays and it has all started to come together.
“It is good fun and we are all working towards the same goal.”
With three matches of 10 in the six-tam competition remaining, Glasgow sit fifth in the table and will now be looking up the way not down.
This Saturday they host Gwalia Lightning at Scotstoun before another home match with Brython Thunder on March 1 and an away match versus the same opponents on March 8.
In January, Glasgow could, and maybe should, have beaten Gwalia away before losing out 31-26, so they are looking forward to playing them again.
“The performance down at Gwalia was our turning point because we started to show what we can do there and in the rematch this coming weekend we want to show what we can do for 80 minutes,” McNamara added.
The impressive back-rower Gemma Bell, scrum-half Mairi McDonald, second-row Kate Yeomans, wingers Abi Evans and Emily Norval and McNamara scored Glasgow’s tries versus Edinburgh with McNamara kicking three conversions, too.
“We got the 80 minute performance we were looking for,” Glasgow head coach Lindsey Smith told The Offside Line.
“The girls really stepped up, defensively they were really calm and controlled when it mattered. A couple of little errors sneaked in, but we scored six tries and we’d never scored more than three either last season or this season before.
Edinburgh’s tries versus Glasgow came from centre Lucy MacRae, hooker Aila Ronald and back-row Merryn Gunderson with MacRae converting one of them.
They are fourth in the table and have Irish teams left to play.
This coming Saturday they are at Hive Stadium versus the Wolfhounds and then they host the Clovers on March 1 before the Wolfhounds away finishes things off on March 8.
On the disappointing derby loss, their fifth defeat in all in a row, Edinburgh head coach Claire Cruikshank told The Offside Line: “I think Glasgow came out with fight, I think they wanted it more than we did and that definitely showed.
“It’s something we’ve got to learn. We’ve got to want it – we can’t just turn up and expect to win fixtures.”
Thanks to Glasgow Warriors for the image of the celebrations after their derby win
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