'Lions can help Glasgow strip away Leinster aura'
- Published
Franco Smith hopes the experiences his Glasgow Warriors players gathered playing alongside their Leinster counterparts for the British and Irish Lions in the summer can help strip away the "aura" of the Irish side.
Warriors were on the end of heavy defeats by Leinster in both their Champions Cup quarter-final and United Rugby Championship semi-final last term.
It was the continuation of a pattern of dominance for Irish sides over their Scottish counterparts at both club and international level in recent years.
Huw Jones, Sione Tuipulotu and Scott Cummings all contributed to a successful Lions tour that culminated in a 2-1 series win over Australia.
"That experience of sitting in changing room with people that you've given sometimes a lot of respect, suddenly the gloss comes off a little bit," Smith told the BBC's Scotland Rugby Podcast.
"Hopefully they bring that back and realise that the people that we face, or the teams that we face, are beatable. They are normal people.
"We had a lot of injuries in the back end of the season and, especially in the URC semi-final, it was a different group that gained a lot of that experience.
"So we will have a much broader group that will be able to challenge that aura, if that is the word. I don't think we're intimidated by that. We're excited to play them."