Glasgow Warriors 7 Cardiff Blues 30
Firhill Friday 19 February 7.30pm kick off
Cardiff Blues got the first points of the evening through a Ben Blair penalty, with Jackson having missed two early long range penalty efforts for the table topping Glasgow side.
Molitika and Rush were looking destructive in the back row while Laulala was adding nice touches in the backs. The Blues soon got more points on the board following Glasgow offside with Blair converting.
Jackson missed another easier effort and the Blues maintained their lead with 20 minutes gone and looked to move the ball wherever possible with Sweeney orchestrating things from fly half.
Casey Lauala broke the defensive line 40 yards out and gained good ground, but there was nobody on his shoulder as Stortoni tackled him. However the move was taken forward by Gary Powell and Rhys Thomas before the ball was spread wide to the right where Tito came close to crashing over. It was the closest either side had come to a try in an evenly balanced opening 30 minutes.
Dudley Phillips awarded another penalty for offside only ten yards from the Glasgow try-line but the Blues opted to kick at goal that Blair again slotted to bring the score on the half to 0-9.
Half Time Glasgow Warriors 0 Cardiff Blues 9
The Blues got off to a flying start, with Sweeney kicking deep and as the ball spread wide to the left Cooper was on hand with a darting run and dive over in the corner. Blair maintained his 100% kicking record with the conversion.
The score lifted the Blues who now had the momentum with Shanklin looking strong in midfield and Cooper going on another run into the Glasgow twenty two.
The Blues got the next try following good work from Rush picking up in the scrum and ably supported by Pretorius. Sweeney took and the ball and sucked in the defence, before releasing Laulala to score. Blair again converted.
The third try was a piece of individual brilliance form Tom James. Picking the ball up 40 yards out James showed his speed and strength bouncing off three defenders before touching down in the corner. Blair slotted the difficult conversion before leaving the field injured.
Despite the Blues dominance it was Glasgow who got the final try through Max Evans with Colin Gregor converting.
Blues: 15 Ben Blair 60off 14Tom James 13 Casey Laulala 12 Tom Shanklin 73off 11 Chris Czekaj 10 Ceri Sweeney 9 Gareth Cooper 70off
1 Taufa’ao Filise 2 T Rhys Thomas 3 Gary Powell 70off 4 Deiniol Jones 5 Paul Tito (c) 60off 6 Maama Molitika 40off 7 Ben White 73off 8 Xavier Rush
Replacements: 16 Huw Dowden 73on 17 Scott Andrews 70on 18 Scott Morgan 60on 19 Andries Pretorius 40on 20 Darren Allinson 70on 21 Sam Norton-Knight 60on 22 Dafydd Hewitt 73on
Glasgow Warriors: 15 Bernardo Stortoni 14 Hefin O’Hare 13 Max Evans 12 Peter Horne 11 DTH van der Merwe 10 Ruaridh Jackson 9 Mark McMillan (capt)
1 Jon Welsh 2 Dougie Hall 3 Moray Low 4 Tim Barker 5 Richie Gray 6 James Eddie 7 Chris Fusaro 8 Richie Vernon.
Replacements: 16 Fergus Thomson 17 Kevin Tkachuk 18 Dan Turner 19 Paul Burke 20 Colin Gregor 21 Alex Dunbar 22 Peter Murchie.
Referee: Dudley Phillips (IRFU)
Attendance 2,754
Yellow card
Cardiff Blues
Try Cooper x 1 Laulala x 1 James x 1
Penalty Blair x 3
Con Blair x 3
D/Goal
Glasgow Warriors
Try Evans x1
Penalty
Con Gregor x1
D/Goal