Rennie considers priorities after a sobering defeat

GLASGOW head coach Dave Rennie hinted he might forget about chasing European dreams and instead switch his full attention to winning the Guinness Pro14 title after suffering a sobering defeat to Leinster.

Following the opening 24-15 Champions Cup loss away to Exeter, Glasgow’s reverse to the three-times Euro champions at Scotstoun yesterday has left Rennie’s men facing a near-impossible mission to have a hope of repeating last season’s historic first qualification for the quarter-finals.

They must beat Montpellier home and away when the cup resumes in December, then Leinster away and Exeter at home in January — and they must score four tries or more each time.

Rennie admitted: ‘We’ll think about it in December. We’ll turn our focus back to Pro14. It’s clearly not where we want to be — it’s a tough pool as it is.

‘We’ll reassess things based on that — where our injuries are at — and whether we end up prioritising Pro14 ahead of this competition. We’ll make a decision in December.’

The New Zealander agreed that Leinster had played on Glasgow’s relatively inexperienced front row, but had also beaten up his pack in the collisions, and he remains concerned at his side’s desperation at times to score swiftly without building the necessary phases to suck the life out of the defence.

‘Obviously, I am disappointed,’ he said. ‘It’s a pretty solemn changing room as you’d imagine. We got outmuscled today, beaten by a better side, so we have to take it.

‘They won the collisions, so they got pretty good go-forward when they carried. They managed to slow a lot of our ball down, we made too many errors, we lost the penalty count 10-5.’

Leo Cullen, the Leinster head coach, said: ‘It certainly wasn’t easy. We prepped for difficult conditions and the two big moments were when Johnny (Sexton) backed the forwards to go for drives, one of them on the far side and one just before half-time (both resulted in tries).

‘Our forwards laid the platform for us with those tries.’