'I’m not surprised about our performance against Stormers': Franco Smith

Franco Smith claimed he was not surprised to see champions Glasgow turn on the style in their United Rugby Championship quarter-final victory over Stormers because he was always confident they would bounce back from their recent dip.

Warriors romped to a five-try 36-18 triumph over their South African visitors on Friday night to set up a semi-final showdown with the winner of Saturday’s clash between Leinster and Scarlets in next weekend’s semi-final.

Much of the pre-match talk had surrounded the fact Glasgow had lost four of their previous five matches, including a shock 33-7 defeat away to Benetton.

Smith argued that some form of drop-off was inevitable amid such a gruelling schedule, and he is hopeful that his team are back on song at just the right time to defend their title.

“It’s a long season, 18 rounds, nine Test matches (four autumn Tests and five Six Nations fixtures), and you have six or seven European Cup games,” said the head coach. “It’s high-priority games every week.

“Our squad is that big, we’ve rotated it, we’ve brought some new players in.

“But to be on the mental edge the whole time is sometimes inhuman, if I can put it that way.

“All the sides that finished in the top eight had a bad period somewhere. Ours might have been evident against Benetton. Not even against the Bulls, who were actually very good that evening.

“If I keep perspective and don’t form a perception, I have a good chance of staying true to the cause. I’m not surprised about our performance against Stormers.

“I think we saw a lot of grit already against Leinster in the last game (a 13-5 defeat). But it’s good to see some of the boys coming in and contributing.

“I thought Henco (Venter) played very well. I thought Tom Jordan was on top of his game, Sione (Tuipulotu) brought that energy, (Rory) Darge was on it, Scott Cummings played 80 minutes for the first time in a long time, so there were a lot of ingredients that are different from during the season.

“I honestly feel we’ve competed really well to be second in the competition (for most of the season), so I don’t mind us… I can understand why we lost a bit of form.”