Josh McKay hopes Glasgow can use last season’s away success as inspiration

Josh McKay believes Glasgow can take heart from the two big away wins they secured in last year’s United Rugby Championship play-offs as they aim to pull off another one away to Leinster in this Saturday’s semi-final.

If Warriors are to defend their title, they will have to negotiate a similar path to the one they tread a year ago in terms of facing Stormers at home in the quarter-final before facing trips to Ireland in the semi-final and South Africa in the final.

Last year, they defeated Munster 17-10 at Thomond Park in the semi before edging out the Bulls 21-16 in the final in Pretoria.

This year, after defeating Stormers for the second year running in Friday’s quarter-final, Franco Smith’s side head to the Aviva Stadium to face the might of Leinster, with the reward for victory a return to South Africa to face the Bulls or the Sharks in the final.

“I think the main thing we can take out of last year is that we showed that we can play how we want to play anywhere,” said full-back McKay, reflecting on the similarities ahead of another formidable away trip.

“It doesn’t have to just be out there at Scotstoun where we win, which is something that probably let us down in the past.

“But also, that’s last season. I guess you can respect that that’s happened before, but this is a new group facing a different team in the semi. Probably one of the benchmarks around world rugby, it’s still a massive task.”

McKay feels Glasgow can take encouragement from the way they defeated Stormers 36-18 on Friday as they bounced back to form after three consecutive defeats.

“That performance on Friday night was arguably one of the best performances of the team this season,” he said. “There’s plenty we can take from the game against the Stormers, both on the good side and also what we can work on as well.

“We didn’t build heaps of phases, our discipline was a little bit poor and we’d probably like to have a little bit more ball. But it was definitely positive, we were able to put a few moves together and do enough to get the job done.

“It was a massive game in front of our home crowd.

“Obviously Leinster away is a big game as well. We see a lot of teams go over there and struggle and I guess it’s a credit to what they’ve built over many years.

“They’ve got a hugely-deep squad and they show every year that they can go deep into these competitions so obviously we know what’s ahead of us. They’ve certainly been the benchmark in the URC this season.”