Final talk premature as Glasgow face Connacht

Image source, SNS

• Published29 minutes ago

Franco Smith will have hated parts of the preamble to Friday night at Scotstoun, Glasgow Warriors' United Rugby Championship play-off quarter-final against Connacht, arguably the form team of the competition right now.

The pantomime around where the Warriors will play a 'home' final, should they get that far, will not have sat well with the head coach. Smith is not a man to project beyond the battle in front of his face. He's too canny and too respectful for that.

If Glasgow win on Friday and then win a semi-final a week later they will get to play the final in their own country. It cannot be at Scotstoun, Celtic Park, Ibrox or Hampden for assorted reasons.

For the longest time it looked like it could not be Murrayfield either. Concerts and the need for hard cash to keep the Scottish Rugby show on the road looked like denying Glasgow a shot at playing a denouement in Edinburgh.

There's significant disquiet about that. That position is changing now, it seems. Murrayfield looks like it will be available, after all. All a bit slapstick, all a bit of a head wreck.

• Connacht dispatch Edinburgh to reach URC play-offs

  • Published15 May

• Glasgow Warriors defeat Ulster to finish top of URC

  • Published15 May

While others are criticising Scottish Rugby for the controversy, Smith will be reminding everyone that all of this chat will be grist to Connacht's mill. It's not gone unnoticed in the west of Ireland, that's for sure. Stuart Lancaster's team are not lacking in motivation but all the talk of a Glasgow final is psychological gold.

Connacht are the underdogs but they are an unusual type of outsider. They stormed into the final qualifying place for the knockouts with a run of eight wins in their past nine URC games, including one against Glasgow in Galway (Glasgow were understrength but it was the turning point of Connacht's season) and another against the Stormers in South Africa.

Their form is terrific. Only Glasgow and Leinster have more four-try bonus points in the URC this season. Statistically, they have the best defence. Lancaster is almost a mirror image of Smith as a coach - investing in young players, improving them with the excellence of his coaching, galvanising the club with an ambitious brand of rugby while displaying a hard edge in the process.

Connacht have powered their way into the quarter-finals, but now comes the hard part. They are missing a number of players who have helped them get where they are, the outstanding number eight Sean Jansen chief among them. Jansen is Connacht's Jack Dempsey.

In the backline they are missing young guns and old hands - Harry West, Cathal Forde, Mack Hansen, Caolin Blade and Jack Carty. They had a tough enough job in Glasgow as it was. Missing some of that lot increases their odds substantially.

That and Glasgow having their mojo back. Lancaster says that Connacht have nothing to lose and he's right. Smith cannot say the same. Having blown their home knockout game in the Champions Cup against Toulon, there are demons to deal with.

'Connacht win would be a sensation'

They dare not make a mess of this on Friday or else their season, that promised so much only a few short weeks ago, will go up in a puff of smoke. That fear should focus their mind. They let one fantastic opportunity slip against Toulon so they must be driven to the high heavens to avoid a repeat.

There is a subplot in all of this in that Lancaster Snr is coaching against Lancaster Jnr - Stuart versus his son, Dan, the Glasgow fly-half. Both of them committed to a vow of silence during the week. No wonder.

For Glasgow this is a must-win. In the subconscious mind of some of their supporters they have probably already won. The visitors are a strong, cohesive unit but there are few stellar names in there. There's Bundee Aki, getting better with age, and Cian Prendergast, the captain and back-row. Darragh Murray is not box office but the lock scored for Ireland against Scotland in the Six Nations in the spring.

Beyond that, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Clever players who are loaded with confidence if not marquee appeal.

Glasgow have both. Scrum-half George Horne is back in the team in recent weeks and their three-match losing run ended as soon as he returned. Horne is the heartbeat, the whirling dervish, the guy who teases and torments opposing defences with the slickness of his service, his eye for space and his speed to get in behind them.

He takes Glasgow to a different level but, to Smith's relief, he has other talismen who can do a similar job. Scott Cummings, the dog at lock, is back. He has not been seen since Scotland's meeting with France in the Six Nations in early March.

Gregor Brown is still unavailable but Smith has all sorts of artillery. Huw Jones will play no part but Stafford McDowall would start even if he was. This is a Glasgow team rich in experience and class. They will take some beating. Anything other than a home win would be a sensation.

Related topics

• Glasgow Warriors
• Rugby Union
• Scottish Rugby