“I cannot fault the effort of our players” – Wilson

• 9 Nov 2020

Glasgow Warriors Head Coach Danny Wilson paid tribute to the spirit shown by a much-changed team in defeat to Ulster, whilst also underlining he still expects more from his side.

A side missing 18 players due to injury or international commitments was ultimately overpowered by the Irish province, going down 40-15 at the Kingspan Stadium.

“Credit to Ulster, because they were clinical tonight,” said Wilson.

“We conceded some soft tries to be brutally honest, but I cannot fault the effort of our players tonight. The amount of fight and spirit they showed for each other and for Glasgow Warriors was hugely commendable. We were just outdone tonight by a better side.

“If you look at the group that was out there for us tonight, we had boys from the FOSROC Super6, Scotland 7s, some players that had two days training this week – it was a real mix of players

“We’ll look back and look at the lessons from tonight, those boys will learn those lessons, and we’ll move on.”

Glasgow’s preparations – already disrupted by the absence of the aforementioned 18 players – suffered a further blow in the warm-up, with Jamie Dobie forced with withdraw with a shoulder injury. Sean Kennedy’s performance at scrum-half was one of the positives for Wilson, who also handed Stirling County’s Caleb Korteweg a debut following the eleventh-hour reshuffle.

“For Sean to step in at that short notice tonight and play as well as he did – I thought he was outstanding tonight,” said Wilson.

“Caleb’s only been with us for a couple of days too, and I thought he looked sharp when he came off the bench.

“I’m proud of the effort of everyone. We’ve still got some lessons to learn, but the non-negotiable for us is that players turn up and give their all for the jersey. They did that tonight.”

With next weekend’s meeting with the Dragons having been postponed, Wilson’s men now have a fortnight to prepare for the visit of Munster to Scotstoun on Monday 23 November. It’s a period that the Glasgow Head Coach believes will allow his side to continue to gel as a unit, as the Warriors continue to blood new talent and combinations.

“It’s important that this group gets together and spends more time training together as units,” said Wilson.

“With all the bumps along the way, training time is massively important for this group of players. We’ll be without a lot of our players because of the Scotland call-ups, so this group will come together and get tighter as a unit, and they’ll keep showing that spirit we saw tonight.”