GLASGOW Warriors players promise they are not going to give up on the Guinness PRO12 play-offs until there is absolutely no chance they can rescue themselves. As long as there is any hope, they will keep fighting, starting with tomorrow's match against Zebre.
"Mathematically it's going to be extremely difficult and we're depending on other results, but mathematically we can still qualify so we will take it one week at a time," flanker Chris Fusaro said. "Zebre have had good results the last couple of weeks so they'll obviously be buoyant and will come here with confidence and aggression. We're treating them with a lot of respect and caution."
They have to win with a scoring bonus point, and then hope Munster beat Ulster and Newport Gwent Dragons beat Scarlets the following day to keep their hopes alive going into the final two matches.
Fusaro admitted they also need to keep spirits up among their fans who have got used to the idea that Scotstoun is a guaranteed home win, but have seen the side lose four of their nine home PRO12 games this season.
"Obviously those four games had an effect," he said. "We like to think of Scotstoun as a bit of a fortress but the performances haven't been there to be brutally honest. We have to take that on the chin and focus on finishing with three wins out of three."
"We have been victims of our own success with so many guys going away to the national teams. Injuries at the start of the season had an effect, we lost three out of five of our locks to long-term injuries, that disruption didn't help. Then came the Autumn Tests and Six Nations when losing a lot of players effected fluency.
"Normally we do well in these Test windows but we've just ended up on the couple of wrong results so that even with the international boys coming back we were chasing it a bit. There has been a combination of things – we've had a good run in Europe.
"We've got our coaching team moving on to Murrayfield and Scotland, so we want to send them off on a high. There is a real focus on staying together and remaining positive as a group. The last five years we've made the play-offs so it is massively disappointing but we can channel that and use it to give the Scotstoun crowd some things to shout about before the end of the season."
On a personal level it has been a frustrating season for Fusaro with only four starts. He was injured for the first three months. He has been fit since the end of November, but struggling to break back into the team.
What has been more enjoyable has been a strengthening of the Howe of Fife links when 21-year-old George Horne made his debut three weeks ago shortly after signing to join his brother Peter and Fusaro, who also came through the Fife club.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here