South African import Strauss takes nothing but positives from Heineken Cup defeat

Senior Sports Writer

Thursday 18 October 2012

As Glasgow Warriors look to deal with Ulster's Springbok-influenced power game they can draw confidence from the presence in their ranks of last Sunday's man-of-the-match, Josh Strauss.

Josh Strauss hopes there are no slip-ups when Glasgow take on Ulster in their must-win Heineken Cup match at Scotstoun. Picture: SNS

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Kevin Ferrie

The South African back-row player may be one of the newest recruits to the Scotstoun set-up but he has wasted little time in making his presence felt, as demonstrated by his impressive performance against Northampton Saints, which included scoring the opening try as his team built what should have been a match-winning 15-point lead in just 33 minutes.

Instead, it disappeared in a seven-minute spell either side of half-time, leaving the Scottish side facing the prospect of being out of contention for this season's knockout stages of the Heineken Cup at the earliest possible juncture, but he was entitled to be pleased with his own contribution on only his third appearance for his new club."Obviously, it was going to be very different coming to Europe and getting used to the conditions and everything," he acknowledged. "I felt I struggled to get into the first game, but got a bit better against Cardiff and then I was fairly happy with the last game, but there is always room for improvement. I have to settle into the defensive structures and other things in the team's game-plan."His performance was among the reasons for Glaswegian optimism following Sunday's match and in the short five-day turnaround between matches he is urging his team-mates to focus on what they did well in Northampton and believe in themselves. "You want to start well, but you don't want to, if you lose one game, go into panic stations and try to change things," said Strauss. "There are a lot of positives to take out of the weekend's game, especially the first 35 minutes, which was exceptional and the character of the guys showed in defence, keeping Northampton out when they were in our territory so much. We can take the positives and build on them. I think we should do really well this season."That last comment, in particular, could be interpreted as a failure to understand the cut-throat nature of the Heineken Cup, where defeats in the first two matches can all but wreck an ambitious club's season, and he accepted that he may not have been in Glasgow long enough to be as affected by what is at stake as some of his colleagues."The stress is for me maybe a bit different from the players who are already here," Strauss observed. "It is all new to me but is maybe something personal for them. They have been there before, but for me it is a new experience. It is really more excitement and butterflies, but it is always good to have those nerves going into a game."That said, he is no innocent abroad and has a good idea of what world rugby's leading club and provincial tournament is all about."They do show a few of the big [European] games in South Africa," he pointed out. "They probably show less than they should, because it is a great competition and we really enjoy watching it, but southern hemisphere rugby comes first down there. The Heineken Cup is what we look at in Europe, something that we all strive to experience in the same way that European players would love to experience a season of Super Rugby. It is something that we really look forward to and really follow. It is really physical and it is tough to compare the two because of conditions and the different players in the league, but it was at the same level, really physical and started really fast. "Most of my friends and family I spoke to after the game said it looked just about as fast as Super Rugby. It is a little quicker than Currie Cup. The physicality is always there in the Currie Cup derby games and it is really tough and the Bulls are always smashing at you. So the physicality is just about the same, but the speed of the Heineken Cup [matches] could be compared with Super Rugby, easily."Both elements have been hugely influenced down the years by the recruitment of top South Africans by European teams, not least at Ulster, and having faced Johann Muller, Ulster's captain, in their homeland, Strauss is fully aware of that too. "I have seen the South African flags being waved at their home games," he noted. "I am really looking forward to playing them, especially at home, the first Heineken Cup game here at Scotstoun and our own crowd advantage."Ulster are a really good team. I am really looking forward to the game and the challenge of it."

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South African import Strauss takes nothing but positives from Heineken Cup defeat

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