Scottish Rugby

We asked for your views after Glasgow Warriors' incredible URC final victory over the Bulls on Saturday.

Here's what some of you had to say:

David: So proud of this team. Two years ago we were taken apart by Leinster, shipping 76 points on a very dark day. With Franco Smith at the helm the champagne attacking flair is still there but a mean and organised defence has created a team difficult to beat. Saturday night was so good, can still barely believe it. Vote Franco for PM!

Ross: Stunning, what a club, what a team. My two-year-old granddaughter was shouting 'We are Warriors!'.

Jonnie: I am Edinburgh fan, however even I feel buzzed by this win. How many times have we seen Scottish teams fall short? But Glasgow showed enough grit and determination to see this one through! So many key international players were involved in that win and I really hope the new-found swagger and confidence leaks into the national side.

Stuart: Fantastic! Jack Dempsey, for me was the man of the match, Matt Fagerson was awesome too! Champions Cup next year, wouldn’t that be marvellous. All the Warriors played their socks off. Well done to Franco and his staff too.

Dave: Simply the best Scottish rugby result of the professional era. Better than anything the national team has done, even the victories over England or France. The defensive ferocity the Warriors have brought to their three playoff matches has not been matched by a Scottish side. Superb result for the club, players and the Scottish rugby fan.

Dougie: Outstanding! So great to see a Scottish team tough it out and win through grit and steel. I agree that this is better than 2015. Back then we blew Munster off the park helped in no small part by an unplayable Leone Nakarawa. This, though, was all about attitude and bite. Playing away from home, in altitude with 50k fans against us. Brilliant.

Euan: Incredible performance - so proud of my team. They played fantastic knockout rugby and to win in South Africa at altitude. Two years ago we were in the depths - now two finals in two years and a URC championship - pinch me!

Rob: Franco Smith is the ideal coach to move Scotland's national team forward. All that talent wasted still having Gregor Townsend in charge.

Gordon: The team defied the odds and beat their last two opponents in their own backyards. The defensive display is the best I have ever seen from the GW over the last two games and I feel that made the difference. Fantastic achievement and I dare say few very people genuinely believed they could do it. Well done to the team and the coaching staff.

Image source, SNS

Glasgow Warriors fans have been invited to celebrate the URC title win with the squad at Scotstoun Stadium on Tuesday.

Gates will open at 18:00 BST for the 'champions welcome' event, with the team taking to the pitch an hour later.

The URC trophy will be on show and head coach Franco Smith and captain Kyle Steyn will hold court in a Q&A before fans can meet the players in an on-field signing session.

Andy Burke
BBC Sport Scotland Senior Reporter

Image source, Getty

The common consensus was the altitude at the Bulls’ Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria could play a crucial role in the URC final, but instead it was the Glasgow Warriors’ courage and desire and utter refusal to be denied victory that really took the breath away.

The full-time whistle sparked emotional scenes as the Glasgow players took in what they had accomplished - a title won by taking the hard road.

Three huge physical battles in the knockout rounds in the space of three weeks - at home to 2022 champions Stormers before a trip to Thomond Park to face defending champions Munster and then going head-to-head with this season’s top-ranked team, the Bulls, in Pretoria.

Back-to-back-to-back? With the same starting XV for all three games? No Scottish team could possibly pull that off. Except this team did.

Read Andy Burke's full piece here

Image source, Getty

Glasgow’s URC title success "means everything", said try scorer Huw Jones as the players celebrated one of the great Scottish sporting triumphs.

"Coming away to South Africa - we don't complain about travel. This is a tough place to play regardless,” Jones added to Premier Sports.

"The Bulls were immense. What a game. We had to dig deep in those defensive sets. We pulled through and kept them out."

Number eight Jack Dempsey said Glasgow’s trip to South Africa last month – losing to the Lions and Bulls – proved key in preparing them for Saturday’s upset.

"What a game. I'm so proud of the boys," he said.

"To come all this way after Munster last week - that was a Grand Final. Then we have to come all the way here in six days, play another Grand Final in front of 50k...

"We came here a few weeks ago and got a taste of the altitude, we knew what it felt like."

Full-back Josh McKay added: "It's a final, there were butterflies throughout the day. I had to keep a lid on it and pop the bottle at the right time.

"These are the games you want to play. As a young kid growing up in New Zealand, you watched big games at Loftus, getting up at 4am to watch them. To play in one and win a final with the Glasgow brothers is unbelievable."

Image source, Getty

Former Glasgow flanker John Barclay has heaped praise on head coach Franco Smith for his transformative impact since taking the reins two years ago.

Having led Warriors the Challenge Cup final and URC quarters in his first season in charge, South African Smith has now ended the club's nine-year wait for silverware with a momentous triumph over the Bulls in his homeland.

"They dominated that second half. The stats showed it, double the metres carried," Barclay told Premier Sports.

"So much credit has to go to Franco to turn that team around in the space of a couple of years.

"They had a lot of potential but he's taken them to the next level and made them more resilient, more robust. Tactically, he's tweaked the way they played.

"He said last week there will be no excuses for us not performing. On Saturday night they had more energy, enthusiasm, and more physicality.

"There's this suggestion that, looking at Scotland in the Six Nations, there was an issue. This proves there's been a shift, or that isn't the case. They've done it the hard way.

"You can't look at that team and say it's a soft team mentally, and it's the bulk of the Scotland team."

Smith's men produced a barnstorming second-half performance in Pretoria, with George Turner and Huw Jones adding to Scott Cummings' earlier try, and held on for victory after Tom Jordan's yellow card.

"Utterly incredible. Quality, guts, composure, discipline - time and time again," said ex-Glasgow and Scotland player Chris Paterson.

"They were asked so many questions, they fell behind, had a yellow card late on.

"The physicality, the brilliance in attack. Three tries to one. No missed goal kicks. Everything had to be right."

Image source, Getty

Matt Fagerson - player of the match in the final - savoured URC glory after Glasgow "won it the hard way" with the odds stacked against them.

"Words cannot describe how we're feeling right now," Fagerson told Premier Sports after the 21-16 victory over the Bulls in Pretoria in which his side roared back from a 13-0 deficit after 40 minutes.

"It's something we've been working towards all season and to do it in a place as historic as this in front of all these fans is, I can't put it into words.

"I think in the last three or four games, we've really taken a liking to knockout rugby in a sense of we're not overplaying the ball and when you've got a kicker like George Horne, it makes things so much easier.

"We went the hard way but we wouldn't change it for the world."

Duncan Weir, the only surviving member of Glasgow's 2015 Pro12-winning squad, added: "Unbelievable. The fight, the guts, the blood, sweat and tears - we did everything.

"I'm so proud to be part of this team. It'll be a good party."

Image source, Getty

Glasgow managing director Al Kellock admits the club's "outstanding" URC final win is more special than the Pro12 triumph he played in nine years ago.

Warriors secured their first title since 2015 with a stunning comeback win over favourites the Bulls in Pretoria after trailing 13-0.

"That [2015] was special but this is better," former Scotland second-row Kellock said. "There's so much heart and soul out there. It's all about now and the now was outstanding.

"Everybody back home as well, we've got to remember so many people couldn't be here that have made this season incredibly special. Those boys left everything out there."

At 13-0 down heading towards half-time, few would have given Glasgow much of a chance in front of 50,000 Bulls fans and playing at serious altitude - over 1,000 metres above sea level.

"This was always going to be hard," added Kellock. "In the first half, I was in bits. This is such a good league with quality teams and players, this is an unbelievable achievement.

"Matt Fagerson, for me, kept us in that. That was his best performance in a Glasgow shirt. That's a high standard by his account."

Image source, SNS

Henco Venter was Glasgow's standout substitute in their URC final win over the Bulls, says BBC Scotland pundit Peter Wright.

The 32-year-old back-row came off the bench on the hour mark in Pretoria, with the Warriors scoring almost immediately after his introduction.

"Henco Venter was out to prove a point," Wright said. "I've seen him play a few times and he's been pretty consistent, but on Saturday night the period he was on the pitch I think he was the best player on the park.

"Defensively he was outstanding and when he was ball carrying, the Bulls couldn't get him on the ground."

The South African was unknown to most when he signed for the Warriors last summer, but he has come to play an important role in Franco Smith's squad, starting 11 of his 22 appearances.

"He was a real beast of a guy in the final," Wright added. "He epitomises what Glasgow are all about, he's a squad player and he performs every single time when he's on the pitch. He doesn't get a lot of game-time but when he does he can make a real difference.

"Glasgow's strength is their players perform. The 23 players in the squad did their job. To concede one try last week and one again in the final, both away from home, is an incredible effort and they won the games on defence."

Smith also came in for praise from Wright after Glasgow's first league win since 2015 - and only the second in the club's history.

"You've got to try and develop your team and the weakness the previous coach [Danny Wilson] had was that he was playing to win the next game and you can't do it when you've got a young team," he added. "You've got to find ways to fit them into the squad.

"That's what Franco Smith has done. The likes of Max Williamson, Jamie Dobie, the young players. Stafford McDowall was never really getting game time under Wilson but Smith has seen something in him.

"Smith has developed a team that he trusts in, that he believes in and he's happy to give guys game time and that's a massive ability to have in your squad."

Image source, Getty Images

Glasgow captain Kyle Steyn believes that his side have grown closer this season as they not only became fathers, but URC champions.

Steyn, Huw Jones, and Sione Tuipulotu have all started a family during the season and prop Zander Fagerson said earlier in the week that he said there was a new-found "maturity" in the squad as a result.

"I don't know if it's made us any more mature," laughed Steyn, wearing ski goggles in his post-match press conference after the URC Grand Final victory.

"Glasgow is a club that likes to connect to its community, connect to its family and for so many of us to finally feel what it feels like to have your own kids and have your own family, that's certainly something that's brought us closer together.

"Sione had his baby very recently, and being able to share in that experience with boys and all across the squad - so many dads and a couple of moms to - those experiences bring people closer together and give you a deeper sense of why you're out there and doing what you're doing."

Matt Fagerson, who was player of the match in the triumph over the Bulls, put his improved performance down to getting back to "basics".

"It's been an up and down season," Fagerson said. "The last month or so I've gone back to what makes me a good rugby player and the basics. I probably would get frustrated in games at certain times when things weren't going my way personally.

"When you're playing with your mates and people you love coming to work with it makes it all that easier."

Image source, bbc

Glasgow Warriors are your URC champions! It was a hard battle in Pretoria but the Warriors defeated Bulls 21-16 in front of 50,000 vociferous fans.

What did you make it of the game? Were you one of the lucky few people who made it out to South Africa or were you in a fan zone? We want to hear from all of you.

Let us know all your thoughts on your champions here., external

Image source, Getty Images

Former Scotland hooker Fraser Brown says there is "no comparing" Glasgow's latest league title triumph to their Pro12 win in 2015.

The Warriors went into the URC final as underdogs but came from 13-0 down to beat the Bulls in Pretoria and lift their first silverware in nine years.

"There's just no comparing 2015 to this," Brown said. "Those boys have been unbelievable in the last three weeks. To come to Pretoria and do it in front of 50,000 fans is incredible. An unbelievable feat."

Glasgow have had a tough road to the final, coming up against the two previous champions in the play-offs - Stormers and Munster.

"They've beaten the last two champions in the play-offs to be champions and then have gone to the most hostile place in the league to win it.

"It's irrelevant where you finish in the regular season, they are the best team in the league by a country mile. What an achievement to go across to South Africa and win like they did."

Brown, technically still a Warriors player who retires from professional rugby at the end of the season, picked out a few for special praise.

"I think Stafford McDowall played every single minute of the regular season bar eight minutes and hasn't played a single minute of the play offs but for guys like him, injured and not playing, it is an unbelievable effort from everyone.

"The praise and congratulations should go to Franco Smith, all the coaches and players because what a job they've done in two years. This is a Glasgow side that couldn't get past 50 minutes two years ago.

"I don't have enough words to praise Zander [Fagerson] enough, he's an incredible player and athlete. He is Scotland's best tight-head, to go 80 is a huge effort."

Glasgow fans, we asked for your pre-match views for Saturday's URC final with the Bulls.

Here's what some of you had to say:

Euan: I think we have a good chance despite the travel, heat and altitude issues. The quarter-final and semi-final wins show a knockout rugby maturity that was absent last year - defence in both games immense - two years, two finals. As Franco says, attack puts you in a position to win finals but defence wins them. C'mon Warriors!

Graham: It'll be a brutal match with both sets of players going at it hammer and tongs, so the result is likely to come down to one or two pieces of inspired play. My concern is the Bulls may have the players to do that when it really matters in the dying embers of the game.

Stuart: After a disappointing end to the regular season, the Warriors have been on fire the last two games. It will be tough, though there is belief. A notch up in gear from last week's game and I believe they will win it. They will have to execute all plays with accuracy to do it.

Jamie: As a Glasgow fan, I think this is Bulls' game to lose. A home final against a big underdog puts all the pressure on the South Africans. If Glasgow turn up and manage a spell of momentum together, the game is theirs. Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu will be pivotal in the centre channels. Come on Warriors!

Image source, Getty

Glasgow Warriors captain Fraser Brown believes referee Andrea Piardi being in charge for the URC final "benefits" his side.

Italian Piardi took charge of Glasgow's semi final against Munster at Thomond Park and faced some criticism for his handling of breakdowns.

"I think he's a really good referee," Brown said. "It's a positive appointment for Glasgow because they've had him previously, they've had him in a big game.

"They know how he's going to referee, they have that little bit of a relationship with him, around the set-pieces."

Eve McTiernan
BBC Sport Scotland

Image source, SNS

Glasgow are "very much the underdog" in the URC final against the Bulls in Pretoria, according to former Scotland international Hugo Southwell.

The Warriors lost narrowly at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium just six weeks ago and face a real challenge if they are to end the Bulls' excellent run of home form.

However, they can take confidence from their wins over the Stormers in the quarters and Munster - away from home - in the semis.

"This will be a test for this Glasgow pack, but they came through the test with flying colours last week," Southwell told BBC Scotland.

"As much as we talk about the back three scoring the tries, it all comes from that defensive effort from the whole team and the forward pack really getting stuck in."

If Glasgow are to provide an upset, they'll have to do it in front of a full house in Pretoria.

"South African crowds can be pretty vociferous," Southwell added. "The biggest thing for Glasgow is in that environment, just keep your head and keep your discipline.

"In a cauldron like that, things can happen. Your head can go. You can get over-excited because it is going to be electric out there and you do stuff that you wouldn't normally do."

Glasgow have had a few near misses when it comes to silverware over the last five years and Southwell thinks it's about time they get their hands on a trophy and "become a proper champion side".

"Having won in Munster and then to back it up in Pretoria, that would be the proper coming of age of this Glasgow side," he said.

"That's getting into the territory of how Leinster got started and Munster when they won last year, just consistent wins away from home.

"Glasgow haven't quite been there over the years, they've been looking towards it. This is their chance to show exactly what they're made of."

Image source, SNS

Former flanker Chris Fusaro knows what it takes to win a league title with Glasgow.

And the former flanker hopes Franco Smith's men can quell a hostile atmosphere in Pretoria and dangerous Bulls side to emulate his team of 2015.

That Pro12 triumph over Munster in Belfast was the Warriors' last major silverware and Fusaro reminisced prior to this weekend's URC showpiece.

"The whole of Glasgow just came to life when we won that final," he told BBC Radio's Good Morning Scotland.

"I think not just for Warriors, but for everyone that came on the journey with us, our friends, our families, the city, it was absolutely incredible.

"It took four or five years in the making. And with Sean [Lineen] initially, the squad that he built, and then with Gregor [Townsend] coming in, it took a long time to build that.

"I think now that Franco's had a couple of years there, you can see he's put his stamp on the team and I think the whole of Glasgow will be buzzing. Fingers crossed they can get the win in what's going to be in a hostile environment over in Pretoria.

"They managed to silence Thomond Park last weekend against Munster and if you can do it there then you can do it against anybody.

"Inside the Glasgow players will be very nervous but the underdog mentality will help them, it's something they'll relish."

Eve McTiernan
BBC Sport Scotland

Image source, SNS

Glasgow Warriors head coach Franco Smith says his side have "learned a lot of lessons" after their disappointing loss in the Challenge Cup final last season.

Smith now has a second chance of silverware, with his side facing the Bulls in the URC showpiece on Saturday, and is determined to right the wrongs of the heavy defeat by Toulon.

"I think out of the quarter-final last year against Munster at home, and obviously the final of the Challenge Cup last season, we've learned and grown," said the South African.

"We've taken some of those learnings into our pre-season and we took it through the whole season and could apply some of them already. We're looking forward to facing this next challenge."

Having beaten Munster at a sellout Thomond Park last week, the daunting task awaiting Glasgow at the Loftus Versfeld doesn't faze Smith.

"We've learned a lot from last week's game," he added. "There was 20,000 Irish supporters at Thomond Park and it could have been intimidating, but we've taken a lot from that in our preparation for this week.

"We know we're going to face a pretty hostile crowd over here as well, it's double the number that we saw last week.

"It's just about focusing on the task at hand and not getting engulfed by the occasion."

Glasgow fans, how are you feeling as the big one looms?

Are you confident Franco Smith's side can overcome the odds and claim a momentous title triumph by beating the Bulls on Saturday?

Is Smith right to stick with the same XV? And who do you think are the potential match-winners?

Let us know your thoughts on the final here., external

Image source, Getty Images

Glasgow head coach Franco Smith has been talking to the media before Saturday's URC final against Bulls in Pretoria.

Here are the best bits from his press conference:

• Smith says his side can take lots of confidence from last week's semi-final win over Munster and the way they performed in front of a hostile crowd.

• Spoke about the importance of "not getting engulfed by the occasion" and "focusing on the task at hand".

• Touched on last season's Challenge Cup final loss to Toulon, but thinks the Warriors have "learned and grown" since that experience.

• The South African praised the way in which his squad has evolved and adapted throughout the season, and says it now puts them in a place where they have "the best available team out there".

• Described winning silverware as "the next step" for this Glasgow team.