Glasgow Warriors ended Edinburgh’s three-year hold on the 1872 Cup with a thrilling, incident-packed Rainbow Cup derby victory at Scotstoun.

Edinburgh’s Mark Bennett and Warriors’ Oli Kebble were also both red-carded.

Glasgow’s Kyle Steyn and Edinburgh’s Stuart McInally touched down after the break.

A narrow home win for Edinburgh followed by an even tighter one for Glasgow at Scotstoun meant this was the decider in the three-match 1872 Cup series between the city rivals.

However, it was Edinburgh who came into this game with the recent momentum having opened their Rainbow Cup campaign with a comfortable 24-18 win over Zebre while Glasgow suffered a dismal 46-19 defeat away to the other Italian side, Benetton.

Indeed, the visitors were first to settle despite Nathan Chamberlain’s kick out on the full from the opening whistle.

When Edinburgh were penalised for offside after 10 minutes, fly-half Ross Thompson’s precise penalty edged Glasgow in front and the tide started to turn.

The first try soon followed as Ali Price found full-back Forbes making a great angle to crash through from five yards out, with Thompson adding the conversion.

Edinburgh hit back when hooker Cherry touched down in the corner after coming off the back of the maul as a series of attacks and decision to kick for touch instead of kicking for goal paid off.

Chamberlain’s superb conversion from wide on the touchline reduced the arrears further, but not for long as Glasgow raced straight up the other end and back-row Lokotui twisted, turned and reached out a long arm over the line.

Thompson’s successful conversion extended Glasgow’s lead only for the home side to have Scotland back-row Rob Harley sent to the sin-bin after 28 minutes following the latest penalty conceded under Edinburgh pressure.

The visitors took immediate advantage as Cherry pushed over the line and Chamberlain converted.

It was Edinburgh’s turn to be reduced to 14 men when centre Bennett was shown a red card for a high challenge on Price following a successful captain’s challenge.

With tempers on edge, prop Kebble was next to be shown red just five minutes later following an Edinburgh challenge after throwing an elbow into the face of scrum-half Henry Pyrgos.

There was still time before the break for Glasgow captain Brown to drive over under the posts, with Thompson again converting.

Glasgow started the second half the way the ended the first and, when Price was held up on the line close to the posts, a superb long pass from Forbes gave wing Steyn the easy task of touching down in the corner.

Scotland hooker McInally marked his return from injury as a replacement by peeling off the back of the maul to reply for Edinburgh.

With Scotland lock Richie Gray yellow-carded, Ratu Tagive held up McInally as he looked to score another try as Edinburgh tried desperately to make their man advantage tell.

However, Glasgow managed to stifle the visitors’ attempts at a fightback to secure victory.

‘We needed a reaction’

Glasgow co-captain Ryan Wilson: “Really pleased. We certainly needed a reaction [from Benetton loss], it wasn’t good enough. We spoke about that, we’ve parked it and made a fresh start.”

“We’ll be sitting down and having a good look at those penalties as we always seem to be doing at the minute. It’s something we definitely need to fix.”

Edinburgh head coach Richard Cockerill: “We gave some soft points away. We did some good things as well, but it was we scored they scored. We spent too much time in our own half. We’ve learned some lessons about ourselves tonight.

“We lacked a little bit of firepower at times in that backline. Glasgow played well and I thought it was a decent game to be fair.”

Line-ups

Glasgow Warriors: Forbes, Tagive, Grigg, McDowall, Steyn, Thompson, Price; Kebble, Brown, Fagerson, Harley, Cummings, Lokotui, Gordon, Wilson.

Substitutes: Turner, Lambert, Pieretto, Gray, McDonald, Horne, Horne, Matawalu.

Edinburgh: Hoyland, Sau, Bennett, Taylor, Van der Merwe, Chamberlain, Pyrgos; Schoeman, Cherry, Nel, Hodgson, Gilchrist, Ritchie, Crosbie, Mata.

Substitutes: McInally, Venter, Atalifo, Sykes, Kunavula, Shiel, Savala, Johnstone.