Glasgow Warriors all fired up for huge games, says John Dalziel

John Dalziel has backed Glasgow Warriors to grab their season by the scruff of the neck and shake it back into life during the next month, when they will play four huge matches.

Glasgow forwards coach John Dalziel says the Warriors are determined to turn their form around. Picture: Gary Hutchison/SNS/SRU

The Scotstoun outfit have struggled for consistency this season and slumped to their fifth defeat in nine outings in all competitions when out-muscled by Leinster at the weekend. They can still reach the knockout stages of both the league and Europe but they need some momentum.

“The next four weeks will be huge,” said forwards coach Dalziel. “We will know a lot more about ourselves and what we need to do at the end of that.”

Their run of potentially season-defining matches starts away on Saturday in the first leg of their Champions Cup double-header against La Rochelle. “For both teams, it’s kind of last-chance saloon because we’ve both got to try and get a result,” acknowledged Dalziel. “We’ve got to go to an intimidating atmosphere with a sell-out home crowd.

“They had a big win last weekend and jumped up a few places in the French league, so they’ll be in confident mood, but we’ve got a lot of lads who’ve played international rugby against France over there, so we know the psyche and mentality that it takes to perform over there.

“It’s an experienced group of players we have, nobody is losing confidence in each other. We’re more determined than ever to turn it around this weekend.”

The Warriors will then take on Edinburgh in the now traditional inter-city double-header, having claimed the 1872 Cup only once in the last five years.

“At this time of the year, Glasgow are usually up at the top of the league and players have maybe been complacent in games around Christmas, but that complacency won’t be there now as it’s a different picture for us,” promised Dalziel. “We need wins in the league to get up into the top three. The season goes on until June and we want to be in there come the play-offs.”