There was a time before Covid when the United Rugby Championship launch was an all-singing, all-dancing affair. Held in one of the participating countries, usually Ireland, every head coach in the league would be assembled in the same room to be interviewed face-to-face by the media.

Most of the attention would be paid to the coach of the current champions. Could they win back-to-back titles? Have they strengthened enough to clinch another league flag? The league-winning coach would have lunch with the others and enjoy his day being lauded by his peers for one last time before the new season started.

Unfortunately, that up close and personal approach is now gone which is why Franco Smith of Glasgow Warriors didn’t even have the honour of holding his own individual URC champions press conference and was instead bundled into an event on Zoom titled “coaches on the couch.’’

Speaking from his office in Glasgow and sitting on a chair he was in “coaches on the couch’ group C along with Connacht head coach Pete Wilkins, John Plumtree of the Hollywoodbets Sharks, John Dobson of DHL Stormers and Leo Cullen of Leinster who were in their own respective offices in Ireland and South Africa. They were all sitting on chairs, not a couch to be seen.  The other 11 coaches are being put up on two different Zoom calls. 

With questions to Smith and every other coach in group C restricted to two each and with only two Scots asking them including me it was as if everybody else had forgotten about how well Glasgow had done to win the URC play-off final in South Africa against the Bulls. Nobody else in the hour-long Zoom call asked Smith a thing apart from me and the man from the BBC.

With his answer to my first question he did accept his team would now be the one that every other URC side would want to beat. When asked if his team had a target on their back, he replied: "Definitely. It goes without saying but it does not change what we have to do and how we have to go about our business. Teams will definitely approach us differently so there will be some more interest in our performances this season."

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Looking around the URC he feels Cardiff could be the surprise package, Connacht could challenge for the title and he expects a lot more from local rivals Edinburgh. "I think Edinburgh are a quality outfit, a quality squad, a good coaching group," said the Glasgow head coach. "They've added some good value to it and it's going to be tough, the derbies over Christmas."

Smith felt with the Scotland internationals coming back later to Scotstoun after their long four-match summer tour of north and South America that had made it tricky to get things going with Glasgow losing both their pre-season matches.

“Obviously, that played a role," he said. "The fact that we finished very late with the final and we had most of the squad travelling with Scotland over the summer. The way we play, the creativity and enthusiasm are important ingredients. To have them back a little bit later was a factor.

“Again, I'm not concerned, as I think most of the coaches around the table, during the pre-season games have had to deal with things. We've done enough. I'm not dissatisfied. You don't read much into the results, the approach and prep is different going forward. As I said 'm not concerned at all, but I will be looking forward to having some fresh boys in the environment.

"In saying that we have a responsibility to bring the next generation of Scottish players through as well. We know about the A-team programmes that Scotland is working on for the clubs so it is important we look at everybody. Scotland have four Test matches in the autumn that will be full of our international players therefore it is important to have seen the other guys in our warm-up matches that came in much earlier to prep for the season with us."

Smith doesn’t think he will have much dealings with the SRU’s new performance Director David Nucifora and expects him to prioritise sorting out the pathway for young players rather than getting involved in the day-to-day affairs at Scotstoun.

"Obviously, when I was performance director with the Italian federation we had a lot to do with each other and spoke often," said Smith of Nucifora who had a similar role at the Irish Rugby Union before he stepped down earlier this year. ‘We share similar ideas from that perspective. I've had a meeting with him just to explain where we're about and what we're trying to do here. I think his focus will lean more to the rest of Scotland's player pathway. I can't foresee immediate change to what should be done at our level, but he's definitely going to influence the pathway as soon as possible, I believe.”

The only other coach to touch on the Scottish clubs was Leo Cullen of Leinster who clearly is still hurting after Glasgow beat them 43-25 at Scotstoun in the first game of last season. They face Edinburgh at The Hive first time up this time round and will be going there angry if their head coach is anything to go by.

"Glasgow got five points and we got not one when we played them first up last season and they went on to win the URC," said Cullen. "Franco really got one over on us then and this time round we are going back to Scotland to play Edinburgh and can’t let such a heavy defeat happen again. My only focus just now is taking on Edinburgh."

Edinburgh head coach Sean Everitt, who is one of the ‘coaches on the couch’ being put up for the media later this week has been warned.

Franco Smith and the other URC coaches were speaking at a Vodafone/BKT URC media round table coaches on the coach series.