WHERE do Glasgow go from here? Dublin, is the literal, physical answer, and if they win their URC quarter-final against Leinster early next month their season will have been deemed a success no matter what happens thereafter.
But the Warriors will be underdogs going into that tie against the PRO14 champions, and if they display the shortcomings that were so glaring against Edinburgh two days ago - a dearth of incision and a glut of indiscipline - they will surely lose heavily. Such a result will bring an appropriate end to a campaign which has seen them lacking in direction, and signally failing to make the kind of progress that their supporters and many other admirers had hoped for.
When Danny Wilson took over as head coach at Scotstoun in the summer of 2020, he rightly identified the need for the team to be more pragmatic on the field. Yes, let’s keep up our attacking traditions, he said, but let’s not feel obliged to attack from behind our own line when nothing is on.
For Warriors fans frustrated by seasons in which their team’s episodic brilliance was all too often counter-balanced by moments of madness, the new coach’s analysis promised greater stability and solidity. But nearly two years later, Glasgow are more or less as flaky as they were back then, just in a slightly different, less endearing way.
Isolated acts of inspiration are still evident in many Warriors’ matches, and still make them an entertaining team to watch. Yet they are at least as susceptible as they were a few seasons back to losing form and concentration for long stretches of a game.
And, while their most harebrained counter-attacking may be a thing of the past, an infuriating lack of self-discipline is there for all to see.
That cost them dearly in the 28-11 defeat at BT Murrayfield on Saturday night, a loss that means they will only be competing in the Challenge Cup, not the Champions Cup, next season. And it will surely be just as costly a failing if they indulge it against Leinster, a team who are legendary for their ruthless exploitation of opponents’ weaknesses.
The Dublin side could be European champions by the time they welcome Glasgow to Ireland - they meet La Rochelle in the Champions Cup final in Marseille on Saturday. Yet whether they lose or win that match, they will be overwhelming favourites to see off the Warriors and progress to a home URC semi-final.
Ali Price, for one, is all too well aware of how demanding a fixture that game will be for his team, but to an extent he feels that the pressure will be off. “We’re going to go there as underdogs, we know that,” the Glasgow scrum-half said. “We’ve got nothing to lose.
“They’re obviously at the peak of their powers at the moment. They’ve got their European final this week then we’ve got our shot at them the next week.
“It’s a great challenge. I don’t think there’s a better team in European rugby at the moment. It’s 15 v 15, isn’t it?”
Yes it is, although 23 v 23 would be a better summation, and a quick glance at the Warriors’ bench on Saturday night highlighted the lack of depth in a squad from which some key players are missing through injury. And of course for ten minutes in the Edinburgh match it was 15 v 14 after Rob Harley was shown a yellow card for slapping down the ball as it emerged from a ruck.
“Against Edinburgh our discipline cost us,” Price accepted. “There were daft penalties all over the place. Mine at the bottom of a ruck - that’s a daft penalty. Some of the pushing and shoving . . . . Little things like that are in our control and against Edinburgh especially we could have been better.
“We need over the next couple of weeks to work on what’s not going right for us. We train well, look great in training, but we’re not quite getting out there on the pitch for any length of time that means we get over the line in these games.
“That’s frustrating and it’s frustrating for everyone. We need to look at ourselves, work hard over the next couple of weeks, and try to put what we train out on the pitch in Dublin.
“If you’re on a winning run it’s obviously a lot better than if you’ve had some tough games and tough defeats. We just have to look at ourselves, to be honest. You can’t make too many excuses about the last month or so - we just need to be better.
“There is no bigger challenge than the one we have in two weeks’ time, going up against Leinster in Dublin. That’s the challenge now and we’ll see what happens off the back of that.”
