Glasgow coach doesn't shy away from cranking more pressure on 'scarred' Leinster

Assistant coach Nigel Carolan stressed that defending champions Glasgow are not heading to Dublin as URC semi-final no-hopers this weekend as he pointed out that hosts Leinster are not infallible.

Warriors were thrashed 52-0 by the Irish side in the Champions Cup quarter-final in April and then lost 13-5 when they faced them in the last match of the regular league campaign three weeks ago.

However, Carolan is taking heart from the fact Leinster lost a semi-final at Aviva Stadium just a month ago when they were eliminated from the Champions Cup by Northampton.

“They’re not superhuman,” said the coach. “They’re humans after all. They’re only players. They’re not a team that are going to get it right all the time. Anything can happen in a knockout game.”

Fixture

United Rugby Championship

Leinster

37 - 19

Full-time

Glasgow

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Asked if Glasgow would have any scar tissue from their heavy defeat against Leinster two months ago, Carolan said: “I think it’s in the back of your mind, of course, but you look at Leinster as well, they’re probably more scarred from their defeat in the semi-final against Northampton, and that’s something that continues to be alluded to.

“But as a sportsperson, you can only be next-game focused. You try and right the wrongs, you try and learn from what you can and try and do a better job the next time. I think that’s what we’ve done. I think we’re in a good space, definitely travelling over to Leinster this time, even more so than we were three weeks ago.

“Maybe it was a dead-rubber game, but I definitely think physically we were in a good position, our mindset was right to play and we certainly asked some good questions of Leinster. There’s enough of a template there to know that if that’s the way we can travel again, we’ll ask good questions this time as well.”

Leinster have not won a major trophy since their URC triumph in 2021 and Carolan believes there will be pressure on the Irish side.

“Albeit we have the champions tag, they’re at home, they’ve got a serious quality team, a world-class team,” he said.

“Obviously, their expectations were to be a lot higher in the Champions Cup and they’ve missed out on that.

“There’s a lot of pressure on them to get silverware this year and it’s up to us to try and get that trophy back to Scotland.

“All we can do is focus on ourselves and put as much pressure on Leinster as we can, try and play the best version of our game. If we do that, we know we’ll put pressure on them and who knows what will happen?”