Warrior spirit is bare minimum, says Horne
Playmaker left cold by credit after Leinster
GLASGOW playmaker Pete Horne has insisted that he and his team- mates can take little or no consolation from having played well for large parts of Monday night’s loss to Leinster.
Warriors coach Danny Wilson praised the character shown by his players in the second half of the 32- 19 defeat by the champions, and said they should have taken something from the match, which was a third defeat in four PRO14 outings. But Horne said that fighting spirit should be regarded as a given, and that even though some aspects of the contest could be seen as encouraging, a team of Glasgow’s stature had to demand more of themselves.
“You know, you’d be gutted if anyone questioned our character, the type of blokes that we are,” said the standoff, who converted two of his team’s three tries, scored by his brother George, D’Arcy Rae and Tom Gordon. “That’s a given: any time you pull on a jersey, you go out there and put your all into it.
“We can’t pat ourselves on the back and feel like we’ve played all right but come away on the wrong side of the scoreboard. We’re a prouder club than that. We should be doing better.
“No- one really cares that we’re playing all right and we’re fronting up a bit. In this business, at professional level, it’s about getting results. We’ve made sure that everyone knows that in the changing room. We’re all gutted, but we just need to look at each other and make sure we turn it round next week.”
Leinster, who have won all four of their games to sit top of Conference A, have used
nearly 50 players already this season – proof if any were needed of the unmatched depth of their squad. Glasgow, conversely, are particularly short in some positions, notably second row, where a combination of Scotland callups, injury and Covid protocols meant they could not field a specialist replacement in the position.
Having said that, Wilson was able to select an allinternational back line for the match at Scotstoun, and Horne, who was on the field along with other Scotland caps such as Sam Johnson, Tommy Seymour and Huw Jones, accepted that they might justifiably have been expected to make a greater contribution to the contest.
“There were some young boys who did well,” he continued. “But specially with that back line we had out on the field, it was a great back line and we should have been doing more with what we had.
“I think we gave up a couple of really soft tries. They took their chances. They were really clinical: when they got into our 22 they made us pay.
The main grounds for encouragement at this stage of the season is that Glasgow are not doing too much wrong. They never threatened to get the better of Leinster, but they might well have ended up on top in their other two defeats, by Connacht and Ospreys.
In other words, as Horne accepted, it is plausible to think that they may be on the brink of putting together a decent run of results, even if their next game away to Ulster looks a formidable task. “It doesn’t get any easier – we go to Belfast next week, next Monday night, and we need to have a good week’s training.
“Yeah, we’ll try and build. It’s a tough one at the moment, I’m pretty gutted. But I’m sure when we review it there will be a few quick fixes, hopefully, in our defence, and we can try and build on that for next week.”