“We did well to fight back” | Sione Tuipulotu

• 11 May 2024

Glasgow Warriors centre Sione Tuipulotu praised his teammates for their resilient mindset and bagging two losing bonus-points against a strong Vodacom Bulls side.

Both teams were evenly matched on paper, despite two places separating them in the table. Whilst the Bulls stretched into the lead for most of the game, the Warriors never gave up the fight.

Coming back from 34-10 down early in the second half, Franco Smith’s men continued to battle until the final whistle. A second try from the skipper Kyle Steyn spurred the Warriors into motion. Sebastian Cancelliere ran half the length of the field after a fantastic steal to score the third try. Finally, a tactical substitution allowed Duncan Weir to deliver a Glasgow special. He soared over the scoreline for the Warriors’ bonus-point try.

Sione Tuipulotu praised the resilience of his teammates to bag the two points despite narrowly missing out on the win overall.

“We did well to fight back. We made a couple of errors during the game: we got a yellow card, and we lost possession at times when we shouldn’t have. We allowed the hosts to get on the counterattack,” he said.

“We talked about that and said that we’d try to limit any further opportunities for them to continue doing that.

“The second half was really good. Especially how things went down in the last 25 minutes. It was really encouraging, and our resilience is something that we can take into the Lions game next weekend.

“We’re also trying to get as many points as we can.”

The centre stressed that there was a shift in mindset in the team that enabled them to exploit the hosts when they appeared to have taken their foot off the accelerator.

“The mindset was to just keep going. If we weren’t going to win the game, we wanted points. We were doing the maths here and there so that we could leave with two points.

“Two losing bonus-points is not the worst outcome from this game. Hopefully, next week we can walk away with some more which will put us in a great position to try and stay at home for as long as we can in this competition.”

Tuipulotu praised fly-half Weir for his precise and accurate kicking. Weir kicked a late penalty, slotting the ball through the centre of the posts from over 50 metres out. The score brought Glasgow back to within seven points of the hosts to end the game 40-34.

Tuipulotu may have manifested the successful kicking to see the game go somewhat favourably in the way of Glasgow.

“I actually sent him a photo from when he scored the winning points for us against the Ospreys,” said the centre.

“I said to him, ‘History will repeat itself’. We didn’t win the game, but Duncan stood up and converted points for us as well as scoring a try.

“Duncan got us our two losing bonus-points which could prove very valuable heading later into the season.”

The clash against the Vodacom Bulls was the first of two against South African sides in the southern hemisphere. Next week, Glasgow faces the Lions in their penultimate league game of the season.

“I’m a hundred percent looking forward to getting stuck into next week ahead of the game,” said Tuipulotu.

“We’ll rest up now, regroup, and then we’ll go hard. We’re focused on winning the game and ending our South Africa trip with a win to cap it off.”