Franco Smith: Glasgow Warriors have punched above weight - and I know what we need next season

A 22-21 defeat by the Bulls at Murrayfield in the semi-finals of the United Rugby Championship brought the curtain down on 2025-26 for Smith’s side.

Glasgow led 21-3 after 25 minutes but conceded 19 unanswered points thereafter to end their hopes of a return to the national stadium for the final. Instead, it is the South African side who advance to their fourth URC final in five years.

“We didn't convert the opportunities, but there are two sides to it,” said Smith, whose side led 21-10 at the interval thanks to two tries from captain Kyle Steyn and a penalty try.

“From a Bulls perspective, if you go in 21-10 down, you come out with a different, desperate mindset. I thought they dealt with the first 10 minutes after half-time better. That obviously led to them being in our rear-view mirror. We started looking more at the scoreboard.”

Glasgow gained home advantage in the URC play-offs after finishing top of the league at the end of the regular season but ultimately they couldn’t make it count. It had been the same story in Europe where victories in the Champions Cup pool stage over Toulouse, Clermont, Saracens and Sale had given them a home path in the knockout phase. They beat the Bulls in the last 16 but lost to Toulon in the quarter-finals at Scotstoun.

The Bulls took their revenge at Murrayfield on Saturday, with tries from Johan Grobbelaar, Embrose Papier and Francois Klopper and seven points from the boot of Handre Pollard giving them the narrowest of victories.

“I don't know if you can measure disappointment but it's high, both of them,” said Smith, referring to Glasgow’s defeats in the European quarter-final and the URC semi. “We've carried the Toulon disappointment to South Africa. We came back and we fought it. We changed our mindset. Again, it is disappointing today. But that's what we're going to be remembered for this year – the disappointment.

Smith: ‘We’ve done extraordinarily well’

“Last year I stood here at this stage [after a URC semi-final defeat by Leinster] and I was basically in tears and emotional about a small squad of 38 players with not enough foreign internationals to back up our Scottish internationals. The expectation was big and we had a tough draw with the schedule changing. Despite that, we ended up top of the log. We ended up having all these home advantages. We've done extraordinarily well in Europe.”

The coach said he had plenty of appetite to go again next season when he expects to have a bigger squad, albeit without six experienced players who are leaving the club: Jack Dempsey, Huw Jones, Adam Hastings, Johnny Matthews, Jamie Bhatti and Sione Vailanu.

“I always have fire in the belly,” said Smith. “It's not how hard you get hit, it's how hard you can get hit in the face and move forward. That's my temperament. It's our DNA.

“Nobody will know how much we fought above our weight this season. Are we a champion winning team yet? Maybe not. Maybe some of this disappointment is going to push us over that last hurdle.”

Asked what was still required, he said: “Mental resilience. In my book for next season, I already have mental resilience as part of our programme. The execution is there and I think there's going to be more and more competition as the young guys grow next season. It's going to allow us to rest some of these players more often if we're going to be able to tap into more of the young guys who I think are ready to play at this level.

“We have signed ten young guys and six experienced campaigners are going. I want to build a garden. I don't want the flower to die. For the long term, we're going to produce more of the players from Scotland. We want to be competitive.”