'Stars are aligning': how far can Glasgow Warriors go in Champions Cup?

Their four bonus-point wins in Pool 1 included victories over six-time champions Toulouse and, on Sunday, three-time champions Saracens at Scotstoun. Three-time finalists Clermont were also knocked off, as well as Sale, two-time winners of the Challenge Cup.

All these clubs have a pedigree in Europe that far exceeds Glasgow’s but it is Franco Smith’s side who are the talk of club rugby this week. Only they and Bordeaux-Begles came through the pool phase with the maximum 20 points and the two clubs’ reward is home advantage for as long as they progress in the knockouts, up to and including the semi-finals.

Heady days indeed for the Warriors who have never before been beyond the quarter-finals of Europe’s top-tier competition but did reach the Challenge Cup final during Smith’s first year in charge, losing 43-19 to Toulon in Dublin in 2023.

Learning from an ‘ass-whooping’

This is year four of the Smith project and Jack Dempsey believes the improvement has been incremental.

“Remember year one under Franco, we go to the final of the Challenge Cup against Toulon, and we get our asses whooped,” said the No 8, who was outstanding in the win over Saracens. “And then that's a learning for us, in terms of the Europe stuff and playing against a French team with a history like that. The next year we win the league, so every year we've kind of taken our learnings. We feel like we're kind of galvanised around that kind of stuff.

“We now go back in the Six Nations now, and I'm sure there'll be a lot of talk around chemistry and combinations based on how Glasgow have gone, so we'll see. Obviously injuries come into it as well, and hoping everyone stays fit. There's a lot that goes into answering your question in terms of how far we can go, but one week at a time.”

It’s the Bulls up next for Glasgow in the Champions Cup round of 16 but not until the first weekend of April, with the Euro competitions going into cold storage during the Six Nations and only emerging again in the spring.

It’s a tougher tie than they might have expected given their high ranking but Dempsey is looking forward to locking horns again with the club Glasgow beat in the URC final in 2024.

Renewing the Bulls rivalry

“All the stars are aligning for a reason,” said Dempsey. “We're playing a team that we've gone the whole way with a couple of years ago in the league.

“We've got a rivalry that we've built with them now that's kind of well documented. We'll just take a week at a time, but we know, we have faith that this [Scotstoun] is a place no one wants to come.

“That was what we were talking about after the first two games, when we won two out of two. And then we came in, we beat Clermont and we were like ‘right, we've got our own position here to host some big games here that we haven't done before’ all the way through to the final. We'll take one game at a time, but we know what a fortress this is, and we want to defend it.”

Given all that, it’s tempting to ask once again: just how far can Glasgow go? “Yeah, we'll f***ing find out,” smiles Dempsey. “I don't know. We'll see.”