Scottish Rugby

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Scotland Women Under-20s head coach Claire Cruikshank believes the Six Nations experience in her young squad has helped drive standards to a new level.

Natasha Logan, Merryn Gunderson, Leia Brebner-Holden and Nicole Flynn were all part of Bryan Easson's squad earlier in the year, and now head to Parma with the under-20s for the Six Nations Summer Series.

"They've brought their experience from the Six Nations into the under-20s squad," Cruikshank said. "It's been great to see. They've used that experience, stepping up as leaders, driving our standards and our culture in the programme.

She also took the time to highlight their individual skills: "Tash [Logan] is a second row, abrasive ball carrier, becoming a real line out leader, working on that area of her game.

"Merryn is a back-row, and another abrasive ball carrier in attack and defence, which we saw in the Celtic Challenge.

"Leia is a scrum-half, plays her rugby down at Gloucester-Hartpury. A real good pass and has some good footwork, an eye for a gap.

"Nicole Flynn plays mainly in the centres, strong ball carrier, a lot of pace. She's only 18 years-old so one for the future."

Despite their experience, it is youngsters Poppy Fletcher and Hannah Walker who have been named co-captains for the tour. Both were part of Cruikshank's Edinburgh squad in the Celtic Challenge Cup.

"Both have really grown into their roles in the last few months," the head coach explained. "They're players that have come through the pathway and played in the under-18 Six Nations festival.

"Both have really grown over the course of our campaign so far. They're well liked in the group, but behind them we have our unit leaders so they're well backed up. It's a group effort."

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Glasgow's URC win puts the Warriors "on the map," according to star centre Huw Jones.

The Scotland international, who scored Glasgow's third try of the brilliant comeback win over the Bulls, believes people will now start to take the Scotstoun side more seriously.

"For Glasgow, it puts us on the map," Jones told the BBC's Rugby Union Weekly podcast. "We've been competing with the top end of the URC for a while but it seemed as though we weren't taken that seriously.

"All the focus was on the Irish and South African sides. To be able to string together this final run shows what we can do. That's huge for us and gives us huge belief going forward."

The 30-year-old, who has 48 caps for Scotland and is in the squad for this summer's tour of the Americas, believes Glasgow's win could also spur on the national side.

"For Scottish rugby, we've won big games in the past but never managed to string the games together," he added.

"We say that every Six Nations, that we want to string performances together in order to go on and win something.

"That's what we've done here. That gives us huge belief with Glasgow and with Scotland. This could be something that propels both teams on in the future."

Jones pinpointed Scott Cummings' try on the brink of half-time in the final as the pivotal moment as Glasgow went up the tunnel trailing 13-7.

"The biggest thing was that try we scored before half-time, that was huge," he said. "Had we gone in 13-0 down, it would have seemed a bit tougher. That gave us a huge boost.

"Looking around the changing room there was a general belief that we were going to win. It felt like it was never in doubt.

"Last year, that would have rattled us and we would've lost faith. This year we've been more mature, sticking to plan, and executing well. Almost everything worked."

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Scotland prop Oli Kebble will join French side Oyonnax this summer after departing Glasgow Warriors as a URC champion.

The South Africa-born 32-year-old made 104 appearances for the Scotstoun side in his seven-year spell.

After qualifying on residency, he made his Scotland debut in 2020 and played both loosehead and tighthead prop for his adopted homeland.

His last call-up came in the 2022 Six Nations when he came off the bench against France at Murrayfield.

Kebble joins Oyonnax on a two-year deal, with Les Oyomen having just been relegated from the Top 14 to the Pro D2 division.

He was an unused sub in both Limerick and Pretoria in Glasgow's final two games of the season, winning away at Munster and then the Bulls as they sealed the URC crown.

His final playing appearance came against his former side Stormers in the quarter-final at Scotstoun.

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The Scots in the Glasgow Warriors squad weren't the only ones going for glory over the weekend, as Bristol Bears took on Gloucester-Hartpury in the Premiership Women's Rugby final.

There were three Scots in the Bears team, as Meryl Smith started at full-back and Evie Gallagher began at openside flanker, with tighthead prop Elliann Clarke coming off the bench.

Despite leading 17-7 at half-time, it wasn't to be for the Bears and the trio had to settle for a silver medal as Gloucester-Hartbury fought back for a 36-24 win to seal successive titles.

Over in France, it was semi-final time in the Top 14 as Toulouse eye domestic success after their European Champions Cup win.

Scotland's Blair Kinghorn started on the wing for only the second time since his arrival in France, but it did not faze him as he dotted down for a try in the 22nd minute.

That was one of five Toulouse tries as they overcame La Rochelle 39-23 to set up a final on Friday night against Bordeaux-Begles (20:05 BST).

Glasgow head coach talks to BBC Scotland after the Warriors returned to Scotland following their URC triumph.

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Glasgow's performance in the URC final was pleasing on the eye, and the stats back up just how impressive it was.

Warriors number eight Jack Dempsey and full-back Josh McKay each beat seven defenders in the 21-16 win over Bulls in Pretoria - the joint-most by any players in a URC final since Opta started collecting this data in 2010.

Dempsey also made 20 tackles, the most by a number eight in a final since Glasgow's Matt Fagerson made 27 in the 2019 loss to Leinster.

Also, despite making fewer carries than Bulls, Franco Smith's side still made more metres (523), had more line breaks (seven) and beat more defenders (41) than their South African opposition.

It was just the fifth time in the entire league season that a team had beat 40+ defenders in a single game, with Glasgow the only team to manage it twice.

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.

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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

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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

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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."

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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."

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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."

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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."

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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."

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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."

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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

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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!

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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."