Franco Smith: 'I don’t like to single out players... but it didn’t count as much'

Franco Smith heaped praise on captain Kyle Steyn for his pivotal contribution to Glasgow’s 33-21 United Rugby Championship quarter-final victory over Connacht at Scotstoun.

With the quarter-final deadlocked at 7-7 at the break after Patrick Schickerling cancelled out Cian Prendergast’s early opener for Connacht, Steyn made a sensational try-saving tackle to deny Josh Ioane just before the half-hour.

The Warriors skipper then chipped in with two tries of his own after the break, while Josh McKay and Jare Oguntibeju also crossed the line in the second half.

“I don’t like to single out players and I’ve said it in the changing room as well now, Kyle ended up scoring two tries but it didn’t count as much as that one tackle he turned around,” said head coach Smith.

“That just proved his leadership through action and it was as if the whole team bought into it straight away and the half-time chat actually was so much easier after that example.”

It was confirmed after the victory over eighth seeds Connacht that Glasgow will play their semi-final against Bulls or Munster next Saturday at Murrayfield. The final would also be at the national stadium if Smith’s side get there.

Scrum-half George Horne is a doubt after going off in the second half with a hand issue.

“We’ll have a look, I think it’s his hand and his thumb he got stood on,” said Smith. “Currently there’s no diagnosis done or prognosis. We’ll have more clarity on Monday.”

Smith was pleased with the way his side recovered from a slow start to suppress their Galway visitors.

“I’m really happy with the result,” he said. “You could see we hadn’t played for 10 days. We weren’t collision-ready in the first 10 or 15 minutes, but that got better.

“We ended up making enough tackles and Connacht ended up making almost 250 tackles, so we’ve asked a lot of questions to tire them out.”