The savage Glasgow Warriors verdict and where it went wrong in URC semi

The club captain said the South Africans wanted it more as they fought back from 18 points behind to claim a 22-21 victory at Murrayfield.

The Bulls will now play Leinster in the final at Croke Park in Dublin a week on Friday in a repeat of last season’s URC decider.

For Steyn and his Warriors team-mates it was a “devastating” end to their season. Leading 21-3 in the first half, Glasgow looked in control but the Bulls ground them down, exerting their formidable forward strength and scoring three tries in a 20-minute spell before and after half-time. They suffocated the Glasgow attack in the second half to deny the hosts a return to Murrayfield for a home final.

‘Massive credit to the Bulls’

“We’re devastated,” said Steyn, who scored two first-half tries to take his Glasgow tally for the season to 11. “There are so many ingredients in it. I want to give massive credit to the Bulls because at 21-3, they could have given up but they stayed in the fight.

“The hard truth of it is they came out in the second half and they wanted it more than us. They got to breakdowns before us and at big moments, they just did simple things better than we did.

“That’s what’s really devastating for us as a player group. For all that’s been put into the season, with the squad the size it was, with the challenges stacked the way they were, with how many boys we had away with the national team and the amount of pressure that puts on a squad, for what everyone involved in this group did to get into these kind of games and then to walk off and feel like we haven’t absolutely left everything out there…the gut feeling is that we lost these games, we weren’t beaten.”

Glasgow had guaranteed themselves a home path in the play-offs by virtue of finishing top of the table at the end of the 18-game URC regular season. They had done the same in Europe by winning all their group phase games in the Champions Cup.

But the defeats by Toulon in the quarter-finals of the latter and the Bulls in the semis of the URC mean that the work Glasgow put in has gone unrewarded.

A rebuild looms

“I don’t want that to sound arrogant because again, credit to the Bulls for staying in the fight,” said Steyn. “But for everything that’s gone into it this season, it was disappointing. But I’ve got nothing but gratitude to everybody that’s worn the Warriors badge on their chest this season - the playing group, support staff and our families, I’ve got nothing but gratitude for some of the things I’ve felt as a man and as a player out there through the season and being able to share that.”

Steyn’s two first-half tries showcased Glasgow at their best and they were then awarded a penalty try as the Bulls pulled down a maul on their own line. Ruan Nortje was shown the yellow card as a consequence but it was while down to 14 men that the South African side hit back.

Hooker Johan Grobbelaar scored before half-time and further tries from Embrose Papier and Francois Klopper in an eight-minute spell early in the second half wrested control of the match away from Glasgow. The Bulls then shut the game down to book their place in the final.

A rebuild now looms for the Warriors who are losing six international players in Jack Dempsey, Huw Jones, Adam Hastings, Johnny Matthews, Jamie Bhatti and Sione Vailanu. So far, Jamie Ritchie, Ruwald van der Merwe and Bayley Kuenzle have been signed and the squad will be augmented by 10 young players signing professional contracts.

Head coach Franco Smith went out of his way to thank the 18,000 supporters who turned up at Murrayfield to back his team and insisted he still had “fire in his belly” for next season. But this was a gut-wrenching end to the campaign and Steyn hopes the experience can make them more durable.

“We absolutely have to take this punch on the chin and learn the way we should,” said the skipper. “We’ve got to regroup and when we come back we’ve got to be hungry and challenge ourselves to show up in more of these moments. If you show up in more of these moments, then you can win these big games.”

Murrayfield teams and scorers

Scorers: Glasgow: Tries: Steyn 2, penalty try. Cons: Lancaster 2. Bulls: Tries: Grobbelaar, Papier, Klopper. Cons: Pollard 2. Pen: Pollard.

Yellow cards: Pollard (Bulls, 9min), Nortje (Bulls, 25min), Cummings (Glasgow, 44min).

Glasgow Warriors: J McKay; K Steyn, S McDowall, S Tuipulotu, K Rowe; D Lancaster (A Hastings 67), J Dobie; P Schickerling (R Sutherland 63), G Hiddleston (S Stephen 63), Z Fagerson (S Talakai 63), S Cummings, A Samuel (J Oguntibeju 63), M Fagerson, R Darge (S Vailanu 74), J Dempsey (E Ferrie 63). Replacement not used: J Oliver.

Vodacom Bulls: W le Roux; K-L Arendse, C Moodie (S Gans 40-54; 75), H Vorster, S Jacobs; H Pollard, E Papier; G Steenekamp (J-H Wessels 67), J Grobbelaar, F Klopper (W Louw 63), R Vermaak, R Nortje (C Wiese 63), M Coetzee (M van Staden 60), E Louw (J Rudolph 60), C Hanekom (N Carr 63). Replacement not used: Z Burger.

Referee: Andrew Brace (IRFU).

Attendance: 17,981.