Glasgow Warriors coach Franco Smith believes his side will get another shot at European glory.
The Scottish outfit saw their Investec Champions Cup campaign come to an end with a 22-19 quarter-final defeat to Toulon at Scotstoun Stadium, but Smith took plenty of positives from the performance and the progress his team has made.
“I’m obviously disappointed with the result. That goes without saying, I suppose,” said Smith.
“We worked really hard in the last few years to get this right. We set ourselves up for a good run-in, but there’s still work to be done.
“The expectation that’s grown, we created that as a team, so I’m very proud of that.
“I said it to the boys in the changing room, ‘we created the expectation’. People thought that we could win this competition and that is a big mind shift.
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“Maybe the motivation we take from this is to believe we can make that next step.
“I’m not saying we didn’t show that today, but the fact that we played at home and everybody’s coming out here, and everybody’s excited about that, that little expectation, it comes into the changing room.
“You saw it in the first five or 10 minutes, little knock-ons or little things that go wrong, and we must learn to deal with that as a club.”
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Smith remains confident about the club’s long-term trajectory, even with several senior players set to depart, including Huw Jones, Jack Dempsey, Johnny Matthews and Adam Hastings.
“We’ve lost big players before, I don’t think that’s the end of it,” he said. “Jack, Huw, Johnny and Adam, they’ve contributed massively, but the understudies are there. The next guys are there to take over.
“I’m absolutely not concerned. This is a solid club. We believe in significance, not in success. We will continue to produce a very good product, regardless of some of the results.”
Photo: David Rogers/Getty Images
The post Franco proud despite despite appeared first on SA Rugby magazine.
Glasgow Warriors coach Franco Smith believes his side will get another shot at European glory.
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