Stafford McDowall wants to make Glasgow Warriors history in the European Champions Cup and he hopes Franco Smith’s ‘smart’ training plan can pay dividends.
The Warriors welcome Leicester Tigers to Scotstoun on Saturday night in their first ever home knockout tie in the Champions Cup. Glasgow have widely been labelled as dark horses to win the trophy but they’ve never won a knockout game in the competition.
Glasgow’s stock, however, has soared after their URC title winning success last season and McDowall believes they deserve respect amongst Europe’s elite.
“We've made history this week, it's the first knockout game at home, but we don't want it to stop there,” admitted McDowall. “We want to keep going. Not that we're overconfident, it's not like we deserve to go far in Europe because we've won the URC. We know it's a tough competition and we know how hard it is to win.
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“That's why no Glasgow team has been further than this stage yet. It's not getting too far ahead of ourselves, but it's knowing that we need to have the belief in ourselves that we can go and do this. It's one that we're massively looking forward to. Franco isn't one for getting too over-emotional during the week. Hopefully we'll bubble in nicely come Saturday night and we'll be ready to go and hopefully put on one of our best performances of the season.”
Historically, English clubs would expect to travel up to Scotland and roll over their opposition but that's no longer the case.
McDowall added: “We love these games when you get to play teams you don't get to play very often. It's the same when you get to play the French teams and the English teams as well. It poses a different challenge. They probably bring a different mindset to what a lot of the teams in our league do. But yeah, we know that we're going to be a physical team.
“They've had a couple of good results. Obviously a big win away to Northampton a couple of weeks ago. Again, they're coming off the back of a defeat, so they'll be up for it. I guess with the coach as well, we all know, everyone knows a bit about Michael Cheika and what he brings, it'll be a physical outfit.”
McDowall has played twice for Glasgow since returning from international duty with Scotland.
“I wouldn't say there's been much of a breather,” McDowall laughed. “We came back here and played Munster on Friday night and five days before we played France (with Scotland).
“It's kind of nice just rolling from one to the other. You don't really get a lot of time to think about it, which in some aspects is nice. Franco's smart with the way we train here.
"Obviously we train pretty hard, but we'll tail down the week towards the end so we'll be fresh for the game. I've really enjoyed the last couple of weeks getting back in here and getting to play two eighty minutes back to back. The first week was a bit of a shock to the body.”
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