When your season opener is the champions away, you want your last pre-season friendly to offer a battle-hardened feel and Glasgow will certainly believe they got a rigorous runout in Gloucester.

Wth Connacht in Galway in mind next, the first half was the most meaningful period with both teams close to full strength before making a host of changes after the break. So forget the final score, it was the seven all draw in the first half that counted most.

Glasgow will be happy to have dominated territory and possession, but disappointed to have moved the scoreboard so little in that time. The scrum was strong, No 8 Ryan Wilson showed an extra willingness to offload, and the ball went through the hands smoothly, but the cutting edge was missing.

It was a bit like a junior practice game with kicking banned, so the home defence were able to fan out and snuff out attacks, sometimes at the second or third go as Glasgow made initial inroads and went through the phases.

It would not have been much consolation for Glasgow that the opening points scoring, when it came, was an exclusively Scottish affair - just scored by the home side.

Scotland centre Matt Scott has had a busy week as his new club's highest profile summer signing, but he used his knowledge of his Scotland teammates to read a pass from international teammate Peter Horne to grab the interception and race 50 yards for the first try. Scotland and Gloucester captain Greig Laidlaw converted.

When Gloucester next succeeded in breaking out of their own half after around 25 minutes of defence, they looked more threatening by spreading the ball a little wider but were still unable to make the breakthrough.

Glasgow did level the scores just before the break, appropriately from Gloucester possession as centre Alex Dunbar charged down an attempted clearance kick from Laidlaw. Pyrgos converted.

Glasgow were to score against straight after the break, Pyrgos creating the opening before handing on to lock Tijuee Uanivi for Horne to provide the extra man to score in the corner.

Laidlaw hit back for the home team as he raced into the opposite corner, converting himself, and it was 65 minutes before a non-Scottish player finally got onto the scorecard as Gloucester full back Tom Marshall strolled over.

With something close to second teams on both sides of the pitch, replacement scrum half Callum Braley exended the home team's lead before Glasgow finally created a neat back move for Sean Lamont to score.

The home team hit back through Elliott Creed to seal the result, though of course that was the single least important element of the night for both teams as getting practice without showing their hand was the main business of the occasion.

Matters will be much tougher in Connacht this week, but an good workout without any major injury worries would have ticked many of the boxes for the Glasgow coaching team. They will no doubt be working on strike moves in the opponents' 22 next week however.

Scorers: Gloucester: Tries – Scott, Laidlaw, Marshall, Braley, Creed. Cons – Laidlaw (2), Hook (2).

Glasgow: Tries – Dunbar, Horne, Lamont. Cons – Pyrgos., Clegg.

Gloucester squad: Tom Marshall, Charlie Sharples, Matt Scott, Billy Twelvetrees, Henry Purdy, Billy Burns, Greig Laidlaw; Yann Thomas, Richard Hibbard, John Afoa; Joe Latta, Mariano Galarza; Ross Moriarty, Matt Kvesic, Ben Morgan.

Subs: Lloyd Evans, David Halaifonua, Andy Symons, Mark Atkinson, Elliott Creed, James Hook, Callum Braley; Paddy McAllister, Darren Dawidiuk, Paul Doran-Jones; Alex Craig, Tom Denton, Lewis Ludlow, Dan Thomas, Gareth Evans

Glasgow Warriors: R Hughes; L Sarto, A Dunbar, S Johnson, S Lamont; P Horne, H Pyrgos (Capt); G Reid, C Flynn, Z Fagerson, G Peterson, S Cummings, R Harley, F Brown, R Wilson.

Subs: P MacArthur, R Grant, S Puafisi, T Uanivi, T Swinson, L Wynne, S Favaro, A Price, R Clegg, R Vernon, F Lyle, D Rae, G Hart.

Referee: Thomas Foley.

Attendance: 8,231.

________________________________________

This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.

www.avast.com