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'Glasgow is a strong footballing city and we'd love to see it full of rugby supporters' - Kyle Steyn
By Online Editors
Kyle Steyn hopes the Glasgow support turn Celtic Park into a sea of blue when the Warriors walk out for next week’s Guinness PRO14 Grand Final.
Warriors cruised into the showpiece with Leinster at Parkhead by crushing Ulster 50-20 on Friday night.
Ticket sales have already topped 30,000 but Steyn is hoping the Scotstoun faithful turn out in huge numbers and fill the 60,000-capacity home of Celtic Football Club.
He told Press Association Sport: “We’re hoping to get as close as we can to selling out Celtic Park.
“The 10,000 who go to Scotstoun are already making the same noise you get from 60,000 so it would be an amazing experience to see it filled with as many Glasgow fans as possible.
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“Glasgow is a strong footballing city and we’d love to see it full of rugby supporters.
“I’ve never been to see a game at Parkhead. I’ve seen it from outside but it will be interesting to see if we get any time there this week.
“I’m not sure if any of the boys in the squad are Celtic supporters. I know Rory Hughes is a big Rangers man so it will be a strange one for him.
“A lot of the boys have spoken about games they’ve seen there and the atmosphere it produces. Hopefully we can use that to our advantage.
“The lure of playing at Celtic Park has been massive all season. We said going into the Edinburgh match in our final league game that if we won, we’d have the possibility of remaining in Glasgow for the rest of the season.
“It means we’ve not had to leave our own base, we’ve slept in our own beds. That could give us the edge we need.”
Glasgow ran in seven tries as they swept Dan McFarland’s team aside. But they are unlikely to get it so easy against reigning PRO14 champions Leinster.
However, South Africa-born centre Steyn believes there is still more to come from his side.
He said: “We definitely haven’t peaked too early. There is still a hell of a lot from Friday’s game that we can improve on despite the big scoreline.
“It’s about keeping our feet on the ground and making the most of the learnings. Against Leinster, it’s going to be a hell of a clash so we still have one more peak to climb.”
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Latest Comments
GB is England, Scotland, Wales. They are the 3 constituent countries in Great Britain. Ergo playing only those three countries is a tour of GB. The difference between GB and the UK is Northern Ireland. It's not a huge deal to be accurate and call places by their correct name. But please refrain from your idiotic attempts to BS that GB=UK. It doesn't.
Go to commentsThe 2023 draw was only criticized when it became apparent that the top 5 sides in the world were on the same side of the draw. Nowhere did they discuss the decision to backtrack to 2019 rankings which ensured that England and Wales (ranked #12 in 2023) were ranked top4.
The parties who trashed out the schedule were England Rugby, NZ Rugby and ITV. It is bordering on corrupt that a Rugby nation has the power to schedule its opponents to play a major match the week before facing them in a QF.
You won't find commentary by members of the relevant committees because a committee did not make the scheduling decision. I have never heard members of World Rugby speak out on the draw or scheduling issues.
For example in 2015 Japan were hammered by Scotland 4 days after beating SA. The criticism only happens after a cock up.
A fair pool schedule is pretty straightforward: The lowest two tanked teams must play on last pool day but not against each other. That means that TV can focus on promoting big matches with a Tier2 involved for that Friday.
Why does NZ Always get its preferred slot playing the hardest pool match on day 1?
Why do other teams eg France, Ireland, Scotland get so often scheduled to play a hard match the week before the QFs?
If you believe the rules around scheduling are transparent then please point me in the right direction?
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