Positive spin from Townsend

Editor

Glasgow head coach Gregor Townsend has taken the positives from Saturday’s 10-7 loss to Munster, praising his side’s character in Cork.

Stuart Hogg scored the Warriors’ only try of the game as they suffered their ninth loss of the PRO12 season at Irish Independent Park.

After the match, Townsend refused to be critical of his side, saying: “I think we improved as the game went on and it is great to see the character of the players that they were trying to find a way to win and almost did. It was the response we wanted to see from the team.

“We were struggling to go through the phases in the first half but in the second we retained ball and won a lot of penalties off that which gave us opportunities to win the game.”

He added when speaking to Glasgow’s official website: “Munster are an excellent team and they’re excellent when they are ahead as well due to their very good defence.

“They just had a little bit more than us on Saturday which is tough for us to take because obviously we need the win to stay in the mix.”

Glasgow must now refocus on achieving a strong finish to the season as they look to make the PRO12 play-offs in Townsend’s final campaign.

“We have only got three league games remaining, two of them are at home and we certainly want to play as well as we can,” he continued.

“For a number of players the Zebre game might be their last at Scotstoun so we want to play these last few games as if it is our last together and continue to work on improving.

“The things we did well against Munster we want to repeat, but things we didn’t do as well we will work hard on at training and make sure we are better on Friday.”