Former South Africa under-20 flyhalf missed an easy conversion kick that would have given the Glasgow Warriors a much-needed win against the Dragons in one of two Guinness PRO14 fixtures to be played at the weekend.
The Warriors hosted the Welsh team at Scotstoun in Glasgow while Connacht beat Benetton at the Sportsground in Galway, with both matches having been postponed by coronavirus from their original scheduling of a few weeks ago.
There wasn’t anything surprising about the Connacht win over the Italian team, but the game in Glasgow was nip and tuck the whole way. The Dragons were playing to achieve their first successive away wins in eight years, while Glasgow desperately needed to extricate themselves from their position near the bottom of the Conference A log table.
As it turns out, the Dragons win means they leapfrog Warriors on the table, and move into fourth position, three log points ahead of the Scots. However, the Warriors have played two more games than the Dragons have, so their position is pretty parlous in comparison to their opponents.
The Warriors looked like they were going to get some relief after a difficult start to the season when Johnny Matthews scored a late try after the Warriors had fought back from a deficit. The try brought the scores to 23-22 to the Dragons, meaning that a successful conversion would win it. The Warriors players thought the game was theirs before they were shocked to see Thomson’s conversion attempt bounce back off the post.
The former South African age-group star played for Western Province and the Stormers before moving overseas in 2018. Talking of WP, former Stormers and Province prop Brok Harris scored a try in the second half for Dragons that for a while looked like it had the game wrapped up for the visitors before a late Warriors fightback.
Connacht captain and No8 Paul Boyle led from the front, scoring a hat-trick of tries, in the win that took the Irish team to second place behind Munster in Conference B.
Weekend Guinness PRO14 results
Glasgow Warriors 22 Dragons 23
Connacht 31 Benetton 14