Glasgow Warriors captain Alastair Kellock with the PRO12 trophy

Gregor Townsend had the following to say:

If Carlsberg did rugby weekends… well it was very much a Guinness weekend for us and I’m sure our supporters enjoyed some of the sponsor’s product in Belfast and in the many pubs and rugby clubs throughout Scotland after the final whistle last Saturday night.

It was a joy to watch our players perform so well in such an important game and as a coaching group we were immensely proud of their efforts. Even better was the reaction to this performance from our sizeable travelling support. Their constant noise and some new chants made it a great occasion at the Kingspan Stadium – a venue that will now forever have fond memories for Glasgow supporters.

Over the past few weeks I’ve written about the culture of Glasgow Warriors and how this has been the foundation for our success. The on-field development over the past 3 years also tells a story of how the players have improved to become a much stronger team. The following games illustrate this progress.

In October 2012, we were drawn to play Northampton away in the Heineken Cup. The English side were leading the Aviva Premiership at the time and were 1 of the favourites for the European title. We played some great attacking rugby and raced into 15 / 0 lead after 30 minutes. However, we didn’t believe in ourselves enough and held back in our positive play. We ended up losing 24 / 15. At the end of that season, in our semi-final match against Leinster at the RDS, we played even better rugby but lost out 17 / 15. This time we did believe in ourselves much more but we weren’t smart enough yet to consolidate our good play and eke out penalties to find a way to win like our Irish opponents managed in the 2nd half of that game.

In season 2013 / 2014 the belief and the rugby intelligence within the squad grew and we produced some significant wins – notably over Munster at Thomond Park and later on that season against the same opponents in our maiden home semi-final some 12 months ago. However, we then learned another vital lesson in our 1st ever PRO12 final by discovering that emotional control was just as important as belief and rugby ability, as Leinster showed much more patience to run out comfortable winners in the end.

Those 2 seasons showed to me that failure is an integral part of success. This season we have become a much more resilient team – not losing our belief if things don’t go our way, be it through mistakes, injuries or refereeing decisions. It allowed us to win tight games such as our European Rugby Champions Cup tie in Montpellier, and, crucially, in our semi-final against Ulster 10 days ago. These experiences have shaped the squad and our players were much better prepared mentally going into Saturday’s final.

It was then all about trusting each other, trusting the game plan and giving that extra ounce of effort to deliver a winning performance. It was great to see them go about that task right from the start of the game.

Having chosen to play into the wind we knew we should get a lot of ball kicked to us in that 1st half. Our work to get back for counter-attack was excellent and allowed us to play the game at a high tempo. A vital cog in this effort is always the outside centre and Richie Vernon certainly worked his socks off running over 7km – the most of any player in the game.

We created a number of try scoring opportunities – not all of them we took – but we were very pleased to be leading 21 / 10 at halftime.

Just before the 1st half ended I got the most exciting weather forecast I’ve ever heard from our assistant coach Kenny Murray, who has been fantastic since joining us from Ayr a couple of years ago. Kenny was tasked with relaying messages to the players and coaches and couldn’t control himself throughout the game in saying the rain and wind are now picking up. We obviously knew it would make it much tougher for Munster who had to play into these conditions in the 2nd-half.

Apart from a 7-minute spell at the beginning of the 2nd-half when we got a little bit loose, the players work-rate to earn their win was magnificent. This is evidenced in our defence stats. Both props (Gordon Reid and Rossouw de Klerk) had identical tackle counts – 13 each and no misses. Jonny Gray set some really high standards once again with 23 tackles and no misses.

The midfield and the back-row also contributed very well to our defensive effort, making 94 tackles between them.

Any teams success is based on their defence and this was very much the case in Belfast on Saturday night.

The attacking instinct of our back 3, the unplayable Leone Nakarawa and the strong carrying Josh Strauss was top class but you need players working very hard in support to make the most of this and credit must go to Rob Harley and Henry Pyrgos for being in the right place to score crucial tries for us.

Although the win was ultimately delivered by the 23 players who took to the field on Saturday, there have been many more people who have contributed to our success. Sean Lineen and his coaching staff built the foundations for the team’s competitiveness a number of seasons ago, and there has been increased support and investment by Scottish Rugby, which has been a great help and is very much appreciated. Stuart Yule who heads up our brilliant performance team has got the most out of our players from a physical perspective and everyone in our squad knows how much he has contributed to our on field performances and how we’ve been able to continue to play at a high-paced aggressive brand of rugby throughout the season.

Others vital members of our support staff include our analysis and medical team – an outstanding group who are selfless and hard-working. They should be very proud of their efforts.

Finally to my senior coaching assistants: Shade Munro and Matt Taylor. Shade has been a true professional and is a Glasgow legend, whose hard work over the last 10 years culminated with the club’s 1st major trophy at the weekend. His forward pack did him very proud up against one of the best packs in Europe on Saturday.

Special mention must also go to Matt Taylor whose enthusiasm and attention to detail has helped create a really strong defensive team. Matt has now added a PRO12 winners medal to his Super Rugby title he picked up with the Queensland Reds, which is pretty impressive so early in his coaching career.

We do a lot of things differently at Glasgow, not always better but we aim to learn from our mistakes as quickly as possible. There will be no resting on our laurels, for a couple of reasons – 1 is that I firmly believe there is a lot more to come from this group, and there were a number of areas we could have done much better on Saturday. Winning to us is about improvement – not just what appears on the scoreboard. We will be working even harder next season to be a better team. Also, unquestionably we have a challenging and exciting few months ahead. With 22 players in the Scotland World Cup squad – and congratulations to them all – and probably another 3 or 4 players away with other countries, there is a lot of work to do to be ready for the 2015 / 2016 season. It’s just as well we have only given the players a 10-day break until our pre-season training starts…

I’m really looking forward to next Wednesday and our 1st session of the new season and taking that next step in our development.

Glasgow Warriors Head Coach Gregor Townsend

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