Glasgow will be more clinical and “have an edge” to turn the tables on Connacht in Galway and win tomorrow’s Guinness PRO12 semi-final, says new Warriors centurion Peter Horne.
The Cupar-born centre will make his 100th appearance for the club at the Sportsground still smarting from the 14-7 loss two weeks ago, a game the Scotland player believes Glasgow should have won even with 14 men for the last half-hour.
But he clearly pinpoints Glasgow’s failing with the plenty of ball they did have as the biggest thing they have to correct for the return match in the semi-final.
“There’s been a big emphasis on taking those opportunities,” he said. “We had the best of the opening 20 minutes for example, and should have come away with 10 or 15 points from that spell.
“Our conversion rate last week was terrible, under 10 per cent in fact which is really poor for us, you’re not going to win a game on that.”
Connacht did force Glasgow into a game they didn’t want to play, but a few adjustments would correct that, he added.
“They put us under a lot of pressure and defended really well for periods of that game, while I think we lost our shape a little and fell into the trap of slow ball, to slow ball, to slow ball.
“As we held on to the ball and went through a few phases there were chances, and it gives us a lot of hope because if we keep 15 on the field we can put a bit of width on attack and have a crack. But even with 14 I think we could have won that game.
“Gregor’s mentioned keeping emotional control and I think that’ll be massive in a semi-final. In a big game like this you can’t afford to be giving away dumb penalties and it’s something we’ve built on.
“We’ve talked about having a big more edge, more bite to our game. It comes down to who performs on the day but we have over the last few years built up experience, and we know massive games like this come down to one or two little events.
“Even in the final last year, we ran away with it at the end but that game was settled on a couple of little instances, us holding up Paul O’Connell over the line. Those little things change big games like these.”
Horne is likely to have Mark Bennett mon his outside in Alex Dunbar’s injury absence but is relishing taking on Bundee Aki, the PRO12’s player of the year and last week’s man of the match.
“It’s obviously big blow to lose Alex but we couldn’t have a much better replacement than Mark,” he said. “Bundee’s had a great season, justly voted player of the league but nothing motivates you more than playing someone in the form of their life.
“You want to challenge yourself against the best, and it’ll be great fun. He’s kind of central to a lot of things that happen for them, carries a lot of the set piece so we’re doing little bits and pieces that will hopefully shut him down.”
Glasgow will carry a decent support to Galway but Horne loved the atmosphere two weeks ago.
“They’ve done really well, a few years ago you’d go over there and there wouldn’t be that many although they were a passionate lot,” he recalled.
“This time it was cracking, it gets you going, and gets the hairs on your neck standing up. We were getting a bit of gip from the sidelines but that’s always good, it adds to the occasion. I’m sure it’ll be even better this week.”