DTH Van der Merwe made a fairy tale return to Treviso's Stadio di Monigo yesterday when he scored the try that helped Glasgow Warriors clinch a 13-8 victory, giving a massive boost to the Scottish club's hopes of reaching the RaboDirect PRO12 play-offs in the process.
The Canadian had been out of action since injuring his shoulder at the World Cup, but the 25-year-old – Glasgow's top try-scorer last season – showed he had lost little of his sharpness when he sped away to grab his vital score in the 76th minute.
Glasgow now need to take just two points against Connacht, their final regular-season PRO12 game, at Firhill on May 5 to guarantee a place in the tournament semi-finals. A fourth-placed finish is likely, but bonus points and results elsewhere mean they could yet climb to third – and so avoid a meeting with Leinster in Dublin.
"We came to a pretty hostile environment," said Sean Lineen, the Glasgow head coach. "The guys were pretty frustrated at times, but we regrouped after half-time. The way DTH took his try was pretty special.
"He has been champing at the bit for the last few weeks, but we have been holding him back. He saw a bit of space and went for it. That is the kind of player he is."
For his part, Van der Merwe always believed he could make his critical contribution. "I knew I would score a try in this game," he said. "Growing up, I learned always to back myself."
Report, Pages 8-9
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article