Warriors have to be 'calm & ruthless' against Leinster

Nigel Carolan is urging cool heads and a "ruthless" streak as Glasgow Warriors bid to defy the odds against Leinster in the URC semi-final in Dublin on Saturday.

Defending champions Glasgow made a strong start to the play-offs with a 36-18 home win over Stormers last weekend, but haven't won away to Leinster since 2019.

"We scored some cracking tries [against Stormers] even though we didn't have a massive amount of the ball. What it did show is that when we did get chances, we were pretty ruthless," said Glasgow assistant coach Carolan.

"It's what you need this time of the season as you approach the quarter and semi-finals.

"Every opportunity counts and it's important that you take those chances when they come about.

"The thing about Leinster, they really limit the chances that you do get. So, whatever we can create, it's important that we're nice and cool.

"Our mindset has got to be ruthless, but also nice and calm and composed, so we can execute them."

Carolan insists Glasgow are unburdened by the 52-0 shellacking they suffered against Leinster in Dublin in the Champions Cup last month.

"It's history now," he added. "Look, we've played them since [losing 13-5 in the final game of the URC regular season], so I think what we turned up with the last time we played them is a bit more us.

"I think what we saw on Friday night against the Stormers was more us again. We're building nicely, we've definitely got a bit of the mojo back from where we were.

"It's important that we got into this weekend on the back of a good performance last Friday and there's a lot of confidence we can take from it."