ONE of the proudest
and most enjoyable experiences of Pete Horne’s career as a Glasgow player came when the team beat Munster in the 2015 PRO12 final. Now the Warriors assistant coach believes it is time for the current generation of players to make their own history, ideally by lifting two pieces of silverware over the coming four weeks.
Following Glasgow’s semi-final win over Scarlets at the weekend, Toulon are now all that stands between Horne’s team and the Challenge Cup, with the final due
to be played in Dublin on Friday May 19.
But before attention turns back to the European competition, the Warriors will have at least one and hopefully two knockout rounds to negotiate in the URC play-offs, which begin on Saturday with a quarter-final against the same Irish province who were put to the sword in that final eight years ago.
“The PRO12 final in 2015 was
one of the best nights of my life,” recalled Horne, who played all 80 minutes in his team’s 31-13 triumph over Munster in Belfast.
“Just seeing the crowd there at the end of the game, it was awesome. There are a few iconic photos that will live with me forever.
“After the final, we went back to the airport and it was all shut. There was some kind of issue with the plane or something. So we ended up going back to the hotel that we had left. Only half the rooms were available, none of the beds had been made, it was a disaster – but amazing at the same time.
“The majority of us just stayed together in the team room. It was just a brilliant couple of days.
“The boys will potentially tap into that a little bit and it comes up every now and again.
“But it’s more off the cuff as it’s a new era and a new group who are just so focused on writing their own legacy. It’s a great thing to be a part of and something we’re looking forward to.”
That May evening in 2015 is far from the only time that Glasgow have won a big game against Munster.
In fact, when the teams last met, in Limerick at the end of March with league play-off places at stake, the Warriors enjoyed a memorable victory, taking control of the contest with 28 unanswered first-half points before eventually winning 38-26.
But Horne knows from personal experience that Munster are a formidable outfit who are sure to have his team under pressure on Saturday night.
“There’s been a few great results out there on this field against them,” he continued.
“The thing that stands out from those is just what big games they were. It was as close to Test-match rugby as you’re going to get against a good Munster side.
“We’ll obviously look at the game when we beat them a few weeks ago, but we expect Munster will be a different beast in knockout rugby, as they always are. It’ll be a massive challenge for us.
“They’ve got so much experience of winning these big games that you can never rest or take anything for granted. There will be big periods of the game where we’re going to be under the pump and we have to plan for that.
“It’s about not panicking in these moments and understanding that we can ride that out by defending well and scrambling well.”
Refusal to panic when under pressure was certainly the key in Llanelli at the weekend, when Glasgow fell some way short of their own high standards in the first half of their Challenge Cup semi-final against Scarlets before running out 35-17 winners. And according to Horne, the way in which the squad found solutions to the problems confronting them in that game is sure to strengthen their self-belief should they run up against similar difficulties against Munster.
“Scarlets were a great team and put us through our paces and we stepped up,” he continued. “I was so proud of that second half as things hadn’t gone right, we hadn’t played well and there were real moments of adversity.
“And we had to dig in, scramble hard and hang in there. That’s what you have to do in big games. We didn’t shit the bed. We stuck in there and righted a lot of the wrongs that we’d spoken about at half-time.
“It was the players who were leading a lot of that discussion. They knew what we needed to fix and they did that.
“You’d much rather that it happens in a game where you end up scoring 35 points. If everything had gone perfectly to plan in that game then this Saturday against slightly better opposition you find yourself in that same type of sticky patch and just panic.
“We’ll be much better equipped following what happened at the weekend to deal with whatever comes up over the next few weeks.”
