Franco Smith coy on Glasgow Warriors' Champions Cup prospects as talks underway with key player

The Glasgow Warriors head coach might not want to speak about his side’s prospects in this season’s Investec Champions Cup but others do.

Nigel Carolan for one, Glasgow’s loquacious attack coach volunteering the other day that the mindset around the club changed the moment they came from 21-0 down to defeat Toulouse in round two of the pool stage, having gone down to Sale Sharks the week before and also emerged victorious.

“There was always the question at the start of the season - do we have the depth to fight on two fronts? All that changed after the Toulouse win. I think it proved that maybe we can,” said the Irishman.

Smith, presumably, is pushing the same message behind closed doors, even if his approach is a lot more modest and understated in the public domain. The South African would love it if his team could continue to lurk under the radar but beating European behemoths Toulouse removed that likelihood in a stroke.

There will be more eyes than usual, then, on a beefed-up Glasgow side when they take on ASM Clermont-Auvergne at their fabled Stade Marcel-Michelin on Saturday afternoon. The French side are toiling domestically – eighth in the Top 14 – and bottom and winless of Champions Cup Pool 1 but did get the better of reigning Champions Cup holders, Bordeaux Begles, in a domestic league match just a few weeks ago.

If Glasgow, who welcome Huw Jones and Kyle Rowe back from injury, could go into that environment and win ahead of next weekend’s final home pool match against Saracens then it would send out another ear-blastingly loud signal of their capabilities while also improving their chances of retaining home advantage come the knockout stages.

That final point was at least acknowledged by Smith but, beyond that, this notoriously pragmatic figure was reluctant to be drawn too much into any idle daydreaming.

“Nothing's changed for me although I saw Nigel mentioned something,” said Smith, no doubt making a mental note to go and chastise his assistant. “I think it goes without saying, having won the first two games, that there's more expectation from everybody and from ourselves I suppose. That is my biggest task; to keep expectations at bay at the moment and focus on what we can do. For me, it's one game, one opportunity at a time.

“Whether it’s Zebre or when we play these guys (Clermont), it shouldn't change our progression. I'm not putting the horse ahead of the cart at the moment. The outcome of this game is not going to influence much anyway. We want to obviously progress and see if we can have some home advantage going forward. But again, we're just putting more pressure on us. I think our product still needs to improve.”

Having Jones and Rowe back definitely helps, the centre having not played a game all season after undergoing surgery to fix a troublesome Achilles problem in the aftermath of starting all three Tests for the British and Irish Lions in Australia.

Versatile back-three option Rowe has been out since suffering a knee injury against Scarlets in November, although the duo’s return is partially offset by a knee injury picked up by Adam Hastings that sees Dan Lancaster start at 10 and Stafford McDowall provide cover off the bench, both for that role and, intriguingly, the back-row of the scrum too.

“I would have hoped that Huw would have been back a little bit earlier but I'm very excited to have him at the right time,” added Smith. “Stafford would have been managed this week but unfortunately with Adam's injury yesterday, it made it hard. Stafford is one of the world's best hybrids that can literally play in every role. So, it's always nice to have that kind of cover.”

Jones is one of a number of Glasgow players whose contracts are set to expire in the summer and talks are already underway to retain the only Scot named in World Rugby’s Men’s Dream Team of the Year.

“There's obviously a lot of talking going on already since November and even before,” confirmed Smith. “The conversation is currently up in the boardroom. But we've indicated that we'd love to keep him, yes.”