TUIPULOTU IN RALLYING CRY FOR GLASGOW

GLASGOW centre Sione Tuipulotu had his feet firmly on the ground after helping Warriors reach their first European semi-final.

Franco Smith’s side beat the Lions 31-21 at Scotstoun on Saturday night to set up a Challenge Cup semi-final meeting with Scarlets in the final weekend of April. Toulon face Benetto in the other semi.

Tries from Jack Dempsey, Jamie Dobie, Zander Fagerson and Tom Jordan plus 11 points from the boot of George Horne secured Glasgow’s trip to Wales.

Warriors had to withstand some sustained pressure and did enough to hold out with the help of a player-of-thematch display from Rory Darge.

But Tuipulotu (above) feels they will need to be better to go even further in the tournament.

“The key thing for me is to keep a level head,” the Scotland international said on a club video.

“They pushed back a little bit in the second half like we knew they would.

“For us it was about limiting their opportunities and taking away some of their strengths.

“I thought we did that well in periods but we need an 80-minute performance moving into the semi-final and into the final.

“I’m just relieved we got it done. We made it a little bit hard for ourselves at the end there but I was happy with out first-half defensive performance and then after that we did well to hold on.”

The foundations of the triumph were built in the opening quarter.

“We started really well,” Tuipulotu said. “The forwards really stepped up in terms of when they were in our 22 and had a lot of the ball.

“The guys really stood up in the physical task and won key turnovers for us.

“In attack we also started well and got off to a nice 14-point lead.”