Glasgow need to win their last three pool games in the Heineken Champions Cup to progress to the last eight, believes Dave Rennie, and can’t rely on a best runners-up spot.
The Warriors are already six points behind pool leaders Exeter Chiefs and a bonus point win against La Rochelle to follow up their win in France last week is probably essential.
“We reckon we will have to roll Exeter (in the game at Scotstoun in January) said Rennie. “We need to win this week, beat Exeter and then do the same with Sale to have a strong chance of getting through.
“I think three of the pools have a couple of teams who are standing out. With Saracens not really participating this year that pool is a lot softer, so the focus for us is trying to win the pool.
“Obviously getting five points this week is a key part of our thinking, but we need a quality performance and then hopefully the tries will look after themselves.”
Glasgow are wary that last year they beat Lyon comfortably in France but then struggled against what looked like a weaker team on paper the following week.
“This time last year Lyon made massive changes but brought over a young group who were jumping out of their skins to make an impression and they played really well,” he said.
I had a chat with (La Rochelle forwards coach) Jonno Gibbes last week and they see the European Cup is really important for their development, I don’t imagine they will throw in the towel at all.
“La Rochelle have a lot of depth, so whoever they bring they will have a good side. Our mindset has to be around us and how we perform. Hopefully, we will be a bit better than we were last week.”
Glasgow retain Kyle Steyn after his try-scoring display as a replacement and also start Ali Price and new prop Aki Seuili, while they go with a new centre partnership of Stafford McDowall and Huw Jones.
“There’s good competition for places. We’ve made a change at nine, we’ve made a change at 13 – both those positions are very tight,” he said.
“Kyle was great off the bench last week, Aki has been excellent off the bench in both games he’s played so far – in that first game against Leinster I think he made 21 tackles and 22 carries, so his work rate has been excellent.
“We’ve got a lot of time for Stafford. He’s a very good player, he’s a big lad, he’s got a good kicking game and we think this is a good fit for him.”
Glasgow team: Tommy Seymour; Kyle Steyn, Huw Jones, Stafford McDowall, Niko Matawalu; Adam Hastings, Ali Price; Aki Seiuli, Fraser Brown, Zander Fagerson; Scott Cummings, Jonny Gray; Ryan Wilson, Callum Gibbins, Matt Fagerson.
Replacements: George Turner, Alex Allan, Adam Nicol, Rob Harley, Tom Gordon, George Horne, Nick Grigg, Ruaridh Jackson.