GLASGOW may have taken their time to close out the game against Edinburgh on Friday night, but Duncan Weir, for one, believes they were fully deserving of their victory. The Warriors will take a 30-17 lead into May’s second leg of the 1872 Cup, and although they were below their best for much of the game, they were never behind in the match.  

“Even though the first 15, 20 minutes probably wasn’t our finest, we managed to grind out the result, get the game played in Edinburgh’s half, and we came away with some good, crucial points,” said Weir, who converted both Tom Gordon’s first-half tries then added a penalty before being replaced by Ross Thompson with 25 minutes to go. “It was a bit of a classic derby match. It was pretty direct and in-your-face stuff at times, but it was good to come out on the right side of the result.”

Thompson had not long come on to the field when the home team got the decisive score, a try by full-back Josh McKay created by winger Sebastian Cancelliere. “It got pretty close and I thought we closed out the game really well,” Weir added. “Josh McKay’s try is a bit of magic from Seb. In a tight game like that it’s these little moments.”

Edinburgh flanker Ben Muncaster, meanwhile, agreed that Glasgow were deserving of a win that has boosted their hopes of a home quarter-final in the URC’s end-of-season play-offs. But he insisted that his own team could have fared much better had they done themselves justice.

“We weren’t as clinical as we set out to be quite a lot of the time,” he said. “We just didn’t fully get in the game - we had opportunities to win, get on top of them, but we didn’t take them and they were the better team. 

“Glasgow executed their plays a lot better, and quite a lot of our attacks ended in unforced errors. They just had that extra spark, that extra bit of energy compared to us. I guess they were the better team. 

“However, we also know that on a good day we would have easily beaten them. We’re still extremely disappointed that we didn’t come away with the win. That game could have definitely been in our hands.”

This season’s Cup is being contested over two games and will be decided on points aggregate.