Kelly Brown in search of the perfect send-off

GLASGOW'S emergence among the leading lights of Celtic rugby will be assured this week when they fly the Scottish flag in the Magners League semi-finals, but a key group of players preparing to leave Scotland are determined Friday's match at the Ospreys does not mark the end of their Glasgow careers.

• Kelly Brown said farewell to Firhill three weeks ago, but now he is hoping that his Glasgow career will finish with a Magners League title success. Picture: SNS

There was a lot of emotion swirling around Firhill when Glasgow defeated Leinster three weeks ago to ensure their place in the inaugural play-offs, Dan Parks, Kelly Brown, Mark McMillan, Dan Turner, Tim Barker and others taking the ovation of the appreciative Glasgow crowd knowing it could be their last time playing there.

Five minutes from the end of Edinburgh's match with Leinster on Sunday night, Glasgow seemed to be heading back to Firhill and a home semi-final, but two dramatic Leinster tries later and the league's top four was shaken again and the Irishmen finished with a home semi-final against Munster and Sean Lineen's side were handed the road map to Swansea.

Now the team is in the knock-out stage; defeat ends the season and victory takes Glasgow on to a 'Grand Final' against the winners of the all-Irish affair. If Leinster win, the final will be in Dublin, but if Munster and Glasgow emerge victorious Lineen's side will host the final in Scotland.

It would be a fitting send-off for players such as Parks and Brown, in particular, who have regained their place in the Scotland team this season, Parks heading to Cardiff and the former Melrose flanker deciding at 27 the time is right to take up an offer from Saracens to join the Guinness Premiership.

"It was a massive call for me and my family," Brown said. "I sat down with my fiance and chatted about it over quite a long time. I spoke to various players, ex-players, some people who had experience of Saracens, and we felt that at this stage in my career the Premiership would provide a new challenge and push me on.

"The Premiership is something that I always felt I would want a shot at some stage in my career, just for that different challenge. I have been playing in the Magners League for six years and really enjoyed the challenges here with the Borders and Glasgow, but you don't have a long career, and so the challenge of new stadiums, a different environment, even going to a fresh club where I don't know anyone and have to prove myself all over again, I wanted to take on.

"I've never lived outside Scotland and will be further away from my dad, so it's a challenge in many ways, but it's something I'm excited about because I believe it will make me a more complete person and rugby player."

Brown has grasped a number of aspects of his development on and off the pitch in recent times that have combined to help make him a better player as well as a more rounded, confident individual. Like his father, a renowned Borders vet and raconteur, Kelly has always had a stammer. He learned to cope with any on-field ribbing a long time ago, but the demands of increasing media work as an internationalist have severely tested his resolve.

"It is one of those things that sometimes the hardest bit is actually admitting you are a stammerer," he said. "I've never really lacked confidence, but with my speech there are times when I've come to a word and thought 'I can't say that' and so I change it, and what I come out with isn't necessarily the same meaning, so I wouldn't say something I always meant, or I would just blink or rub my face.

"It got to a point this year, during the Six Nations, where I thought I really wanted to nail it down so that I could do TV interviews and not have the fear; I'd not be watching it back thinking 'oh my God, what am I doing there?'

"So I got in touch with the Maguire Programme and I have done a four-week speech course with them, the same as Gareth Gates (Pop Idol singing star] did, which has been really good. It is a programme run by stammerers for stammerers.

"I will always have my stutter, but I speak much better and feel more able to do interviews."

That pressure eased, his mind returns to the more obvious intensity surrounding the Glasgow camp this week – the threat of the Ospreys, considered as the Chelsea of Welsh rugby on account of their player spending in recent years.

Smiling eagerly, Brown said: "I've never played in a knock-out game with a professional club before so there's massive pressure. It's a massive week for us and a massive week for Scottish rugby, but I'm confident that we can rise to the occasion.

"The fact that a few of us are leaving maybe does add something. I give 100 per cent every time I play, but winning the Magners League would be some way to go out at Glasgow. If I was staying I would have exactly the same target, but I know that all of us would love to mark our careers here by making history."