RORY DARGE had a cut above his eye and a generally beaten-up appearance when he spoke to the press immediately after Glasgow Warriors’ 31-21 win over the Lions at Scotstoun on Saturday evening.

Little wonder given that the flanker had made a remarkable 29 tackles and five turnovers as Warriors defended resolutely to book themselves a first European semi-final appearance, which will be against the Scarlets away at the end of the month.

The performance earned the 23-year-old the official man-of-the-match accolade, but Darge swatted away the personal praise and insisted that the most satisfying feature of the game was that the team found a way to win despite an off-colour day with ball in hand.

“We don’t really look at the individual stats too much, and I’m sure both the attack coaches and defence coaches will have some clips for us come Monday,” he said. “We obviously enjoy the win tonight and won’t think too much about what we could have done better but come Monday there will be things to review and that’s good for next week.

“It was a pretty hard night all round. Credit to the Lions, they made it hard for us. They are physical, confrontational, big lads as well – especially that big tighthead prop who was 25 stone!

“He’s a big man and so is Willem Alberts [Lions’ 19-stone second-row]. They had a few big boys rolling round the corner, which was a bit intimidating, but then you see George Turner absolutely slaughtering boys in the tackle. That certainly helps when you know the guys around you are going to do a job.

“I thought we dealt with a lot of their threats well. On the whole, defensively, it was good.

“We probably didn’t come out and execute as well as we would have liked in that second half, so that’s something we will look at. You just have to be ruthless, more relentless. If we do find ourselves in that situation, it’s about putting teams under the pump.

“Look at the week before, against Munster, that was a different game as well. We kept them to nil almost for a full half as well. That’s so important coming into these games – your defence can bail you out at times. We’ll probably look at set-piece and trying to get our attack going a bit more next week.”

Warriors will get a chance to size up the Scarlets when they host the Welsh region on Friday night. That is not a must-win game, but a victory would secure a home draw in the URC play-offs with a game to spare.

“It will be a game we look forward to, but we’ll respect the threats Scarlets have,” said Darge. “They’re going well, they have a couple of Tongans in that pack who are really good off-loaders and are really dangerous players.

“It’s a game we know we will have to play our best, but we won’t have any fears going into it.

“It’s exciting coming into training – we stick to what’s been working for us, manage the games and hopefully we’ll keep getting the results.

Asked if winning the Challenge Cup is a realistic target, Darge replied: “Obviously, and that’s what we are aspiring to.

“I promise this is not a cliche, but we do take it one game at a time and try not to get ahead of ourselves.

“I don’t think we try to ignore it or use it as motivation. It’s not something we talk about really, but it’s exciting being at the club at the moment because we’ve got semi-finals and play-off games and every game is a big one.

“We’ve not had much fear for any of the games we’ve played this season.”

This time last year, Warriors were in the midst of a run of six defeats in their last eight matches of the season, and the campaign reached a miserable nadir with a 76-14 thrashing by Leinster in Dublin which cost former head coach Danny Wilson his job.

Unheralded South African Franco Smith took over the team at the start of this season and has revolutionised the club, with fitness, strategy and self-belief rising to a whole new level during a run of 13 wins and a draw from their last 15 games.

“Franco gets us working hard, but that’s exactly what we need,” concluded Darge. “Monday and Tuesday are usually pretty tough but we feel fresh by the time the weekend comes round. I’m sure that will stay the case because it’s easier when we’re winning games.

“Last year when we weren’t winning games it was really tough, but everyone looks forward to getting into training at the moment so that we can keep working hard and keep improving.”