Smith, Steyn savour Glasgow's URC success

06/23/2024 12:44 AM

Franco Smith and Kyle Steyn recalled the Glasgow Warriors coach’s promise to share a “wee dram of whiskey” with the players following their euphoric Vodacom URC title victory in Pretoria.

Glasgow Warriors scored 14 unanswered second-half points to come from behind and beat the Vodacom Bulls in the URC final at a sold-out Loftus Versfeld on Saturday night.

The URC title victory – Glasgow’s first since 2015 – caps the Scottish side’s rise under former Bulls flyhalf Smith, who took over from Danny Wilson after an eighth-place finish and quarter-final exit in the 2021-22 season.

Speaking to the media after the match, Smith recalled a promise he made to the team during his first few days in Glasgow, which he said he would fulfill following their emphatic win.

“When I started here two years ago, one morning at 7am, I rolled out whiskey to everybody to give them a wee taste of what it would be to have a dram of whiskey on the back of a win,” Smith said.

“I told them to savour that, keep that in your mind and one day, as soon as we win something, that evening we will have a dram of whiskey and a cigar. Tonight, I think these guys have merited that.

"It’s fantastic, the boys played so well, fronted up and should be really proud. Even when we were behind the half-time chat was easy, we knew we had a good plan for the second half of the game.

“We let them in too much in the first-half but we stuck to the script and we brought that hard edge that we needed in the last 15 minutes, defending well and putting huge pressure on the ball. So yes, I did make a promise to the boys and we’ll enjoy tonight."

Glasgow Warriors captain Steyn hailed the way the Smith turned the team into title winners, even though his teammates thought the head coach was a little mad for doling out whiskey in plastic cups during the opening days of his tenure.

“If you look at where we were 24 months ago, Franco came in and I think the biggest thing he had to do was to get us to believe and give us a sense of direction,” Steyn said.

“You think back to drinking whiskey out of a polystyrene cup on one of his first days. There were a lot of boys who thought he was insane, to be honest.

“The consistency in his conviction, the way he goes about his business and what he believes in, that gave us a real sense of direction. Now we look to drinking whiskey out those cups and it doesn’t seem so crazy.”

The URC final encapsulated Glasgow’s fighting sprit this season, as the visitors came from 13-0 down to go 21-16 up in the second half, seeing out a Bulls maul five metres from the tryline in the final play of the match.

“From a rugby perspective, we had hardly given away maul tries this whole season,” Smith said. “I knew the Bulls were not going to play out of the maul, even though we had a yellow card.

“We had some good defensive sets before that. So I just felt that if we stayed patient, the turnover will happen. Not to sound arrogant, but the nerves were under control. I was calm.

“We’ve been talking about the process the whole year.  I backed the process and the boys backed it and in the end that brought the win.”

Steyn said he hoped Glasgow’s victory will inspire the Scotland national team to greater things.

“Yeah, I think it can be huge. Looking at it from a Glasgow perspective, Franco talks about that hard edge and it’s something that we have been working towards as a group, particularly over the last 12 months.

“There’s just something about it, that you can’t really get it until you’ve done it, if that makes sense. The belief that our forwards have shown up front in giving us that hard edge over the last three weeks, I think that gives us a lot of belief going forward.”

Photo: Lee Warren/Gallo Images

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