Finn Russell’s boundless self-confidence will see him bounce back from the deflating misses that may have cost Glasgow a famous victory over Toulouse, believes team-mate Richie Vernon.
Russell, so assured with his place-kicking for the Warriors in Europe this season, missed two penalties well within his usual range at key points in Saturday’s dour European Rugby Champions Cup clash at Scotstoun, edged by the four times champions from France by 12-9.
Stuart Hogg also missed a long penalty shot for the home side from near halfway on a day when running rugby was mostly absent, two top defences snuffed out most creative play and the boot was always going to be the dominant factor.
In that respect, Toulouse’s scrum-half Sebastien Bezy was the key with four successful penalties from four attempts.
Vernon, who struggled to bring his power and pace to bear in midfield against Toulouse’s smothering defence, said there was no need to throw a cumulative arm around Russell after his key misses.
“Since Finn’s come into the team he’s been outstanding,” he said. “The sort of guy he is, that won’t faze him, he’ll just compete to get back in and get the ball back on the tee to have another go.
“The way he’s played for us and the way he’s kicked, he’s been fantastic in the last year. Even the best kickers in the world have their off days.
“He’ll be back next week and I’m sure he’ll put in a great performance.”
Russell got empathy from his head coach as well, Gregor Townsend, who well knows the burden of missed kicks from his own career.
“Finn has been kicking really well in our previous European games,” said Townsend. “last week he was excellent, and he was also excellent against Montpellier. It happens to goalkickers now and again, that’s why there’s no such thing as an 100 per cent kicker.
“I have empathy because I’ve missed those kicks for Scotland and for clubs I’ve played. But it’s not the deciding factor, you need to build the pressure so that it’s not just one or two goal kicks that decide the game.”
Giving away penalties Glasgow’s penalty count was in double figures for the fourth game out of four in Europe was the key rather than missing them, believed Townsend.
“We really shouldn’t have allowed them to get to 12 points,” he said. “Beginning of the second half I thought we had started really well, put them under pressure, then it was scrum penalty, lineout penalty and three points against us after being in their third of the pitch.
“That was disappointing. There was another penalty in the first half when we had the ball, so that’s at least six points that could have been avoided, which is tough to take as a team and as coaches.”
Back to back defeats to Toulouse in six days means the Warriors need to win both their last two games home to Montpellier and away to a revitalised Bath to reach their stated season goal of the ERCC quarter-finals.
“What I heard during the week that 18 or 19 points would be the target as there’s one more runners-up spot this year, although that might drop down because it’s been so competitive in every pool,” he added. “We’re on ten points now so we know we have the challenge to win our last two games.”
It was a strangely flat Scotstoun all afternoon, the biggest crowd of the season largely subdued by the defensive arm-wrestle in front of them, and neither side had a phase of play within five yards of the opposition line.
The lack of the cutting edge of Mark Bennett has been missed in both Toulouse games, and it was only when the Fijians Niko Matawalu and Leone Nakarawa came on in the last 20 minutes that the crowd really got out of their seats.
Going into the match without a specialist openside both Chris Fusaro and Tyrone Holmes were injured was predictably a key to the game. Toulouse’s Thierry Dusatoir and Yannick Nyanga had the home side under pressure at almost every breakdown, a regular source of penalties for the visitors.
Stuart Hogg did his best to lift Glasgow and Ryan Wilson had a forceful game at blindside, but there were too many errors for the Warriors and Toulouse’s physical defence coped comfortably with everything thrown at them.
Russell’s two missed kicks came at absolutely key times. His first would have put Glasgow 6-3 ahead early on, the second a bad and untypically wild hook would have levelled the scores at 6-6 early in the second half.
Two Duncan Weir strikes helped get Glasgow close late on, but more handling errors meant their last bid to force a drop goal to tie or a try to win ended up with them killing the ball in their own in-goal area as time expired.