{"id":399838,"date":"2026-01-31T02:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T02:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/399838\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T02:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T02:19:15","slug":"united-rugby-championship-glasgow-hold-off-munster-to-stay-top-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/399838\/","title":{"rendered":"United Rugby Championship: Glasgow hold off Munster to stay top"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Glasgow Warriors maintained their spot at the top of the United Rugby Championship table with a bonus-point victory over Munster at Scotstoun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ollie Smith, Dan Lancaster, Jare Oguntibeju and Josh McKay scored tries to establish a commanding 28-5 half-time lead, with Ethan Coughlan responding for the visitors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A wonder try from Dan Kelly gave Munster hope and further scores from Brian Gleeson and Diarmuid Kilgallen brought the visitors back within six points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Lancaster knocked over a late penalty to halt the Munster fightback and ensure Glasgow made it nine straight wins in all competitions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Munster had started on the front foot, banging on the Glasgow line but the home side struck with their first attack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A sweeping move from deep set Smith free and while he appeared destined to be bundled into touch by two red jerseys, he somehow grounded the ball with an extraordinary finish before being forced out of play.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fly-half Lancaster banged over a cracking touchline conversion in windy conditions, and less than a minute later he was converting his own try in front of the posts after intercepting a pass from opposite number Tony Butler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Munster struck back in similar fashion, Coughlan reading Stafford McDowall&#8217;s wide pass to collect and score.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The frenetic pace slowed somewhat but with a strong wind at their backs, Warriors wanted to add to their lead before the break.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They hammered at the Munster line and eventually Oguntibeju was able to dive through a ruck to touch down.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Munster wing Thaakir Abrahams was sent to the bin for a cynical knock-on to halt a Glasgow attack. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The home side made their numerical advantage count &#8211; McKay gliding through a gaping hole to go over for the bonus-point try.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Angus Fraser and Seb Stephen both crossed for Glasgow, but both were denied after TMO interventions \u2013 Fraser adjudged to have been held up, and Stephen&#8217;s stunning solo effort ruled out for an earlier knock-on by Ben Afshar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kelly conjured a stunner of his own and this one did count. The Munster centre broke through off a first-phase scrum move from inside his own half and showed terrific pace to burn the cover defence on the outside to score.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For the first time in the contest, Warriors were wobbling and when they messed up a lineout near their own 22, Gleeson reacted first to gather and race away to score.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The pendulum had swung towards the Irish side and when Kilgallen crossed for their fourth try, it was a six-point game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a rare move for Glasgow, Lancaster knocked over a three-pointer to ease the nerves around Scotstoun and ensure Warriors locked up the victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Glasgow Warriors maintained their spot at the top of the United Rugby Championship table with a bonus-point victory&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399675,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-399838","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}