After shooting 
themselves in one foot in their opening match against 
Biarritz last weekend, they blew the other one to smithereens 
against Newport Gwent Dragons in Wales on Friday evening, somehow contriving to lose a match, 22-14, when they could have won it at a canter.

Against Biarritz, it was their lineout, usually an area of strength for Sean Lineen’s side, that was their undoing. Against the Dragons, their composure let them down, the coach admitting that their decision-making was execrable at times. Lineen must sometimes feel like he’s performing one of those plate-spinning acts in a variety 
show; no sooner has he got one part of the operation back on an even keel than another one threatens to collapse.

“We didn’t play cleverly in the first half,” conceded Lineen. “We created enough opportunities again but we didn’t vary our attack enough. The Dragons scored their three tries off our possession, which was just not good enough. In the second half we played some bloody good rugby and got stuck in, but we had made some really poor decisions on the ball in the first.”

The consequence of Friday’s loss is that Glasgow’s prospects 
of reaching the last eight of the Heineken Cup now look hopelessly slim. One of the curiosities of last season’s tournament is that Leinster and Leicester, the two finalists, 
both managed to lose two pool matches yet found a way through to the quarter-finals. In both cases, however, they did manage to collect losing points in their defeats, 
something Glasgow were denied when Dan Parks’ last-minute penalty attempt rebounded off an upright.

That stroke of bad luck at the finish gave the game a perverse symmetry, for Glasgow’s 
evening had got off to an equally bad start when they lost international scrum-half Chris Cusiter with an ankle injury just a few minutes into the match. Cusiter’s injury looked serious at first, but the word from the camp yesterday is that it should not keep him out of action for long.

That prognosis should be good news for Andy Robinson, too, as the Scotland coach is due to name his squad for next month’s Test series later this week. Yet even if Cusiter is fit to return to action within a fortnight, he is still likely to be desperately short of game time by the time Scotland take on Fiji in the first of their autumn internationals on November 14.

Prior to the Dragons game, he had missed Glasgow’s three previous matches due to illness and a family wedding. If, as seems likely, he misses next Friday’s match against Connacht, his only chance of game time will be against the Ospreys on October 30, as there are no Magners League games the following weekend.

Lineen has suffered a wretched sequence of injury problems recently, and is currently without Rob Dewey, DTH van der Merwe, Max Evans, Ruaridh Jackson, Richie Gray, all of whom might have been expected to be regular starters in the side. The coach is optimistic that most will be back in action by the time the Heineken Cup resumes in December, when Glasgow will have two games against Gloucester, but he admitted that the side’s problems go deeper than any injury crisis.

“We’re not losing games because we’re not good enough,” he said. “It’s because certain people at certain times aren’t doing their jobs well. As head coach I have to look at what I’m doing too. We’re winning some games well, like Cardiff away, but we’re a bit naive at times and lacking a bit of direction.

“If I could be granted one wish it would be that we had a bit more bite in our game. We need more go-forward because we’re still too lateral and that’s not how I want us to play. It’s just having that 
direction on the field.

“And we need to be patient because we don’t have a lot of that at times. We scored two outstanding tries against the Dragons after taking the ball through 10 or more phases. That was having patience.

“So the older guys have to step up too. Of course we have some young players, but we have enough there to steer us in the right direction. We have to look at why we’re doing these things because we’re putting ourselves under pressure. We do so many good things then just let ourselves down.”

Parks’ problems were not limited to his last-minute penalty miss. The Glasgow number 10 was also wide of the mark with a couple of other efforts. “Normally, he would have kicked those in his sleep and we would have won the game,” said Lineen, who was also critical of the stand-off’s cross-field kick just before half-time, a ruse which did nothing more than set up the Dragons’ third try.

Glasgow played some of their best rugby in last year’s tournament when the pressure to qualify was off. However, Lineen insisted that they will not throw caution to the wind or field experimental 
lineups in their remaining matches.

“We want to have a say in the tournament,” he said. “To win these four games is a huge ask, but what’s the point in being in it if we don’t try? We have to step up with the right attitude. We’ve got Gloucester home and away in December, and if we’re not up for that then we’ll get smashed.”