Family just adding to Christmas cheer for coach Franco
Only one thing matters more to Franco Smith than rugby and that’s family.
The Glasgow Warriors head coach has made a strong impression during his 18 months in charge, including leading the team to their first European final last season.
Friday night’s derby win over Edinburgh continued the feelgood factor with the Scotstoun side moving top of the United Rugby Championship table for Christmas.
The present Smith really wanted, however, had already arrived by that point.
The former Italy head coach lives in Glasgow by himself for most of the year, so having wife Tania and daughter Cara jet in from South Africa to join him for a holiday matters a lot.
Rugby-playing sons Jean and Franco Jr won’t make it but will connect on a video call for the first family “reunion” in a long time.
And an emotional Smith said: “You’re going to bring me to tears now! It’s fantastic because I have my wife and daughter here.
“They are only here for short parts of the year. We’ll have our Christmas dinner and spend time with each other, and I’ll get my boys on the video call and make sure we spend enough time with them.
“I think we’ve spent only five minutes together all year as a family and that was after my boy played in the Under-20 game against Georgia.
“We got to see each other for five minutes and we took a Christmas photo – and that was in June!
“My wife and daughter are here now until January 11 so it’s fantastic to have them and have a win in this period as well.
“We’re not going to train much now. It’s Christmas and our families are an important part of the team’s character. So we’ll come together again on Wednesday and have the team ready to go on Saturday.”
Glasgow will head into the return leg of the 1872 Cup with the upper hand after Friday’s 22-10 first-leg win.
The weather didn’t help in terms of the spectacle, although
Warriors coped better to run in three tries.
More than 30,000 are expected at Murrayfield for the return on Saturday and Smith hopes it will be better than the first game.
Smith (inset) added: “The result was fantastic. It would have been the perfect evening if we could have managed to get the last one over the line for the bonus point. “But I’m really proud of the guys sticking to their process. I hope the weather plays its part next week because we’ve had a couple of wet evenings here which limited us.
“It can be frustrating and we kicked a little bit more than we should but the weather was bad.
“Now we’ve got to go to Murrayfield and we need to be better if we want to be involved in the business end.
“I think that’s fantastic if it’s a big crowd. It’s a great compliment to Scottish rugby at the moment.
“Edinburgh are competitive. They’re up there, we’re up there.
Both teams are playing a brand of rugby everyone wants to see.
“I think everyone involved can be proud if that number goes to 30,000.”
The only negative for Glasgow was the injury picked up by hooker George Turner but Smith was not overly concerned.
He added: “It was just shot to his bicep. He does everything at 120 miles per hour!
“We’ll assess it but it doesn’t look that serious at the moment. It’s serious enough but we’ll have a better idea when the medical team have done their job.”