AS Glasgow Warriors finally completed their trek back from South Africa and their last-gasp win over the Cheetahs, they have wasted no time in turning their attention to the European Champions Cup and their opening fixture away to Exeter.
"It’s great to be top of our [Guinness PRO14] pool, and to have built up a few wins, but to be honest it doesn’t count for much now," observed Henry Pyrgos, the scrum-half and former co-captain. "We’re looking ahead to an exciting competition.
"There’s no doubt winning regularly gives you confidence, and breeds confidence through the squad, but these European pools are very tough and Exeter are a quality team so we know we have to step it up again."
After tasting the excitement of quarter finals rugby for the first time last season, they are desperate to repeat the feat though, again, Pyrgos reckons history has little effect on the campaign to come.
"It was great finally to get there, after coming so close so many times, but I don’t think we necessarily learned a lot from that one season," he suggested. "I don’t think it’s rocket science, the groups are extremely tough and you simply have to turn up every week and play at a very high standard.
"We know, when we look back, that we’ve done that on some occasions, and done really well to pull off some great wins, but in the seasons where we didn’t qualify we didn’t manage to back it up through six games.
"In this tournament, you have to win five of your pool games – or at least four and get bonus points. It’s very rare for teams to go through with three wins, so that means winning home and away.
"We have a decent home record. The crowd back us well at Scotstoun and we’ll need that again, but it has been really pleasing for all the players to see the fans start to come on the away trips and make themselves heard. The Exeter fans are quite noisy so it will be huge for us having a big Glasgow contingent down there out-shouting them."
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