January 22, 2007

Muffles and Lineen delighted with draw

Posted by Assistant Editor on January 22, 2007 01:09 PM | 2 comments | Print | E-mail author

Muffles was frustrated not to have won on Friday
Sean Lineen and Andy Henderson have both spoken about their feelings about getting drawn against Saracens for the Challenge Cup quarter-finals.

"We are delighted with the draw - we feel we've got a real opportunity there," Sean Lineen said yesterday. "We have been getting close to Saracens since that first game down there. I've spoken to the guys since the draw came out and we are all really up for it.

"There are no hidden pitfalls and we are relieved to have avoided a trip to the south of France. It will give us something to focus on after the Six Nations is over."

Andy Henderson added: "We would have liked to have topped the group, but it's still a great achievement for Glasgow, given our limited resources. We went out looking for a four-try bonus point win on Friday, but it was always going to be difficult in those conditions.

"There is a lot of satisfaction about qualifying, but also frustration as we feel we could have won the game. At least we gave it a go.

"What the performance tells me is that we have fantastic team spirit. It is as good as it has ever been in the time that I've been with the club. Ever since we lost the opening game of the season by throwing away a 20-point lead to the Dragons, everyone of us has really fronted up. The workrate has rarely let up.

"Saracens are a quality team. But the quality of all the teams in the quarter-finals is high. The target was to secure a home game. We didn't manage that but, to be honest, we have reached a level now where you are going to have to play your very best to win wherever the game takes place.

"Its very much a one-off at Watford and we must treat it as a big chance.

"Most of our players have no experience of knockout rugby, but Firday's match certainly felt like a sudden-death affair. It was extremely tense going into the last quarter. It would have been pretty hard to take had we not qualified fromour group after getting ourselves into such a great position."

Comments
Posted by sunday5 on January 22, 2007 09:06 PM | Reply to this comment

I'm sure everyone is looking forward to this game and the teams recent performances haven't gone unnoticed in the Euro Club Ranking table. We've climbed to 26th, still a long way to go but the Gunners are dropping as we climb. They are now only 3 places ahead of us and still going down. I wonder what odds we'd get on us being Scotlands No.1 team at the end of the season?
The Borders are going down like a sack of spuds I'm sorry to say, they've dropped 6 places in the last week!! I can honestly say that I hope they can salvage something from this train smash of a season. Perhaps if they were to get shot of some.... 'overly seasoned', dead wood they may do better....

Posted by highlandbrave75 on January 23, 2007 12:16 AM | Reply to this comment

"overly seasoned, dead wood"?

Better watch out. Remember the SRU have centralised contracts.

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