This Friday night Glasgow Warriors, undefeated at home in the standard PRO14 season, welcome reigning PRO14 Champions and European semi-finalists, Scarlets, to Scotstoun, looking to avenge their 26-8 loss to the West Walians in early April. Dave Rennie has been enjoying the extra preparation time afforded by securing a home semi-final.

“By qualifying top of our pool, it meant we’ve had an extra week off. You know we’ve probably lacked a little bit of edge in the last month, having already qualified perhaps and we certainly haven’t used that as an excuse”

Rennie admits that the team haven’t been clinical enough and have left a lot of opportunities on the field, but is in no doubt that Glasgow will step it up this week.

“We’re at home and playing in front of our family and friends and it should be a hell of an occasion you know, two very positive sides“

Speaking on the quality of the league, Rennie had no surprises as top the quality of the competition during his first season in Glasgow.

“I think it’s the best competition in Europe”

“By that I mean, what we know is there’s a lot of money and a lot of former internationals playing in France and so on, but our competition seems to be a bit more positive”

“I’ve been impressed with the quality of the teams and the comp and the way they play and that’s highlighted in Europe. Three of the four sides in the semi-finals came from PRO14″

However, Rennie admitted it’s a different beast to Super Rugby.

“Super Rugby is a sprint compared to this comp. Our boys started training June 1st and if we can make it through to the final it’ll be 51 weeks into the competition”

That’s not to say that he perceives the quality to be different.

“There are sides in this competition that I think could compete really well in Super Rugby”

With talisman Finn Russell, who is notoriously hot and cold, moving on at the end of the season, and the Glasgow team guilty at times of not taking their chances at key moments, some may be feeling the pressure that comes with knock-out ‘footy’, but not Rennie.

“I’ve got no concerns around our discipline or our focus”

“It’s been a long time in planning this game”

With both sides playing exciting and expansive brands of Rugby, Friday’s semi-final at Scotstoun is set to be a thriller, with the capacity expanded to 10,000 for the first of this year’s semi-finals in the new Guinness Pro14 Final Series, live on Sky Sports, BBC Alba and BBC Wales. Kick off 19:45.

Don’t forget to tune in to the Sony award winning ‘RugbyNation’ on Nation Radio, Wednesday’s 7-8pm, with Sean Holley and Brogan Hubber. I have a short guest feature until the end of the series! The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes.

The Scribbler, 15th May, 2018

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