Stade Francais 31-7 Edinburgh
Glasgow 18-22 Biarritz

Ugh. Edinburgh flatter to deceive and get hammered and Glasgow come close but fail to squeeze out the result they definitely deserved. So far, so Scottish teams in the Heineken Cup. I thought there were a few positives to be taken from the weekends defeats though.

Johnnie Beattie finally took it to the next level with a mature and somewhat barnstorming performance level that if maintained could see him challenge Hoggy and Simon Taylor for the Scotland No 8 shirt.

Thom Evans is improving form with every game and was a palpable threat whenever he had the ball. He just lacks the opportunities without his brother inside him, but Dave McCall is also getting up to speed with each game and building on his solid defence. In the Glasgow backline, Colin Gregor continues to be a hive of activity and Rob Dewey looked a little more at home at centre. Still, they weren’t quite able to put it together in the midfield when needed to win the game.

Dan Parks is at least doing what he does very well – ie kick the ball around Firhill on a bit of invisble string. But he still made two silly choices when the run – and scoring opportunity – was clearly on. With Glasgow’s backs handling skills and pace, such negligence borders on the criminal. What price Ruaridh Jackson or even Colin Gregor marshalling the onslaught on Biarritz’s try line that often went unrewarded?

Glasgow’s front row is developing into a powerful unit providing a solid scrummaging platform, and the props are both under 24 so well off propping “peak”. Still (as with Edinburgh) the lineout was fairly abysmal and led to the slightly iffy try that in the end decided the match. With Ford and Hall both having dreadful days at the lineout, who does Robbo turn to for the Scotland No 2 shirt? (Although some of the “not straight” decisions were a mile straighter than the ones allowed regularly in the scrum. However the Feeding At  The Scrum and Lineout Equality Group (aka FATSLEG) is yet to be convened and start it’s world conquering grass-roots petition, so that will have to wait – watch this space). Glasgow are definitely gettting there.

Mossy looks in great form, his work on sprinting has paid off and he seems to have developed a yard of pace – he should be back at 15 on merit. Cairns looks good but rarely saw the ball. If Houston is injured, I still reckon Cairns should be playing 12 and De Luca 13. Regardless, there was some slack midfield tackling that gave Stade an unassailable lead far too early on, and Scottish teams always struggle trying to force the game.

Umm, that’s about it for Edinburgh. Okay so they won the second half 7-3 with a well taken try but by then Stade’s foot was so far off the gas that they resembled someone dropping a bucket of paint over a traffic jam (slowly) rather than the confident riot of colour and pace from the first half. Roddy Grant looks fully at home in the 15s game and is it just me or were Edinburgh much better when Hogg was captain? Or was it just poorer opposition early on in the season. Far too many handling errors, no lineout control and lack of quick ball for/from Blair basically put the dampeners on Edinburgh’s match. At least it is a game they would not perhaps have targeted as a “Win” in their battle to escape the pool, but one wonders if it will prove a damaging blow to the confidence of a team that we felt had moved forward so much under Andy Robinson.