GLASGOW Warriors coach Gregor Townsend will demand a significantly better performance from his team on Saturday when they visit Leicester in search of the win he believes will take them into the Champions Cup quarter-finals. Speaking after the 14-12 Pool One defeat by Munster last night, Townsend accepted that the better team had won, but insisted his players had it in them to produce the sort of improved performance that would take them to victory at Welford Road.

The full picture will not be clear until the penultimate round of pool fixtures is completed today, but as things stand any kind of victory could be enough to put the Warriors into the last eight for the first time. A bonus-point win would give them an even better chance of being one of the three best runners-up from the five pools. Last night’s result at Scotstoun was enough to put Munster through as group winners.

“We’ll have to play better,” Townsend said. “We always knew that we’d have to win next week even if we’d won today. I still believe a win will get us into the quarter-finals, but that will become more clear in the next few days.

“I believe in this squad; I know we can play better. We just have to take our game up another 10-20 per cent next week.

“The players are hugely disappointed, because they put a lot of effort into the game. We knew how important this game was for us and for the club as a whole, so to lose it in the last seven or eight minutes is even more disappointing.

“But the better team won. At times we played well, especially at the beginning of the second half. At times we did the things we set out to do. But just on a few occasions we weren’t at our best.”

One of those occasions came in the final few minutes of the game when Glasgow, in need of any kind of score to go a point ahead, were in ideal position more than once to go for a drop goal. But Finn Russell spurned the opportunity, the attack continued ball in hand, and it was eventually snuffed out by the consistently excellent Munster defence.

“In hindsight I definitely think I should have gone for a drop goal,” Russell said. “I sat in the pocket a few times and lined up a shot, and looking back now I should have had a go.

“Even when Tim Swinson made his superb break for the line, rather than take a chip over I could have gone through another few phases and had another shot at a drop goal even then. In the end it’s frustrating to lose by a few points when I know I could have taken a drop goal and won the game for us.

“It now depends on other results. We know we need to go down to Leicester next weekend and get a win - that goal doesn’t change. We still want to qualify, so we need to get the win and hopefully that will push us up enough.”

Swinson, the lock forward, was named man of the match, but insisted he would far rather have had the win rather than the award. “It’s nice to get some sort of personal gain, but in reality I’d much prefer to be the worst player on the pitch and get the win,” he said. “We had a really good team effort today, and unfortunately they had a good try at the end.

“We’ve got to get down to Welford Road and win there next weekend. We want to win all the games we play, but this time it now makes it obvious - if we win that we should go through.”