Glasgow to tighten discipline and defence for semi-final clash with Munster

BETTER DEFENCE: Glasgow Warriors will travel to Thomond Park this Saturday buoyed by the manner of their URC quarter-final victory over the Stormers but wary of the need to defend much better against Munster than they did in Cork earlier this season. Pic: ©INPHO/Craig Watson

Glasgow Warriors will travel to Thomond Park this Saturday buoyed by the manner of their URC quarter-final victory over the Stormers but wary of the need to defend much better against Munster than they did in Cork earlier this season.

The Scots, Pro12 final winners over Munster in Belfast nine years ago, have written quite a few more chapters in their rivalry with the Irish province since that 31-13 victory at Ravenhill.

Glasgow celebrated a famous 38-26 win in Limerick on their last visit in March 2023 having taken a 28-0 half-time lead, only to lose 14-5 at their Scotstoun home two months later in the URC quarter-finals.

This season’s regular season meeting saw Glasgow visit Cork as league leaders and score five maul tries only to concede six Munster tries and lose 40-29 at Virgin Media Park but defence coach Peter Murchie saw plenty of positives in their last encounter to give his side belief they can repeat last season’s Thomond Park ambush in this Saturday evening’s semi-final.

“I think we gave away six or seven penalties in the first five minutes, got a yellow card after 10. Discipline-wise we came out on the wrong side of the referee,” Murchie said of that December 1 contest. “We barely touched the ball for the first 40 minutes - we just defended.

“We’ll need to defend a lot better than we did in Cork, that’s for sure, but I think we saw against the Stormers what we’re capable of for large parts of the game defensively.”   

Glasgow had Scotstoun rocking last Saturday night as the eventually broke the game open in the final quarter after leading the Stormers 6-5 after an hour, eventually running out 27-10 winners thanks to tries from Sebastian Cancelliere, Henco Venter and Ross Thompson, and some accurate goal kicking from player of the match George Horne.

“We showed discipline to stick at it for 80 minutes,” Murchie said. “The conditions were difficult for both teams, and it was very tight pretty much the whole game.

“We had a six-point lead then it was nip and tuck and we only managed to pull away from them in the last 10 minutes.

“To be operating under that kind of stress in terms of the scoreboard, and it being very physical with ebbs and flows in terms of momentum, we created quite a few chances and just didn’t quite finish them off.

“To be able to press that home in the last 10 minutes does a lot for belief about sticking to a plan and not losing faith in what we are doing. We eventually got the reward, and that was satisfying for the guys given the effort they had put in.”   

Munster will present a different challenge to the South Africans and Murchie pointed to the impact made by attack coach Mike Prendergast since joining Graham Rowntree’s staff from Racing 92 in the summer of 2022.

“They have definitely evolved their attack since the change in attack coach. 

“They still have the areas of the game they pride themselves on, in and around the set-piece and physicality, but they’ve got a few more bells and whistles in terms of how they attack and how they look to find space.

“Some of that is in and around the Irish blueprint and how the other provinces attack. Stat-wise they are high for ball in play and number and passes. They are not just a one-trick pony in terms of being set-piece, scrum and maul.   

“There is more to their game than that. They’ve got a pretty all-court game.”