“You look at them just now, they’re on a good run of form,” said Glasgow defence coach Scott Forrest of the Bulls. “They’ve won five [of their last six] league games. They’ve been to the final of the URC almost every year. They’re a team that knows how to win knockout games of rugby. There’s potentially a little bit of a rivalry happening there which I think is natural when teams play each other in a final and there’s a lot at stake. We don’t need to stoke the fire much, to be honest.
“We know their set-piece is really strong. When they get on the front foot and the forwards start to use that power game, we know that’s where they get success. But they do also want it to become unstructured at times. They’ve got world-class backs as well and I think that’s where they really come into play. The game when we played them here at the start of the season, we had a big focus on having to match them physically, because if you don’t do that, you’re going to struggle. We don’t want the game to get loose. That’s going to be the focus again this week for us.”
Forrest reiterated Nigel Carolan’s comments from last week that the players need to learn where the line is when it comes to being confrontational and physical but not veering into unnecessary confrontations or sh**housing. A repeat of Adam Hastings ruffling the hair of Leinster’s Sam Prendergast is a no-no.
“For us internally, we don’t want to see those things happen,” added Forrest. “We want to be regarded as a team that is competitive at the top level of competitions. But we don’t necessarily want it to boil over. Franco has addressed that within the group, that we don’t really want to be seen like that. We want to be confrontational. We want teams to respect us when they play us, to fear us when they play us. But no one really wants to see things like that in the game.
“Hair ruffling is definitely out! Listen, the confrontational bit we’ve spoken about. You have to be if you want to win trophies, which is ultimately our aim. But we don’t want to step across the line. When you’re scoring tries, that’s probably not the time where you want to rub it in anyone’s faces. So, yes, we want to be respectful while at the same time showing everyone how tough it is to come to Scotstoun and play rugby.”
Warriors have added Glasgow Hawks scrum-half Callum Reidy to their list of EPCR registered players and could yet have Kyle Steyn back sooner than first expected from a leg injury sustained against Ireland at the end of the Six Nations.
“Kyle is probably not as bad as first thought,” added Forrest, speaking this lunchtime. “He’ll hopefully be on the pitch this afternoon. If that goes well this afternoon, he’ll hopefully be involved across the next two weeks. That’s probably better news than what we were expecting at the end of the Six Nations.”
One player who won’t be running out at Scotstoun – in a Warriors shirt at least – is David Kriel, with the South African centre set to choose La Rochelle over Glasgow as his next club.
“Yes, that one’s dead,” confirmed Forrest. “I think there were some conversations going on. Probably there’s been quite a few conversations, as there always is when you sound out players. Everyone knows we’ve got guys moving on at the end of the season, so we’re always looking at where do we need to strengthen.”