Zebre 7

Glasgow Warriors 31

Alasdair Mackenzie

Glasgow fly-half Adam Hastings insists it has been easy to press the reset button following Scotland’s disappointing World Cup, after starting the season in flying form alongside ‘livewire’ half-back partner George Horne.

The stand-off was named man of the match as Warriors defeated Zebre 31-7 in Parma on Saturday, with Hastings scoring a try and kicking two conversions.

Five Scotland internationals returned to Dave Rennie’s starting line-up for the game, while Hastings returned a week earlier having been used more sparingly in Japan than some of his club-mates.

The memory of Scotland’s pool stage exit at the hands of the host nation is still fresh in the memory, but for Hastings the process of returning to his daily routine has not been difficult – other than the odd training ground mix-up.

He said: “Sometimes you’re still calling Scotland calls in training!

“But for the most part it’s been really enjoyable. I didn’t play much when I was away, so I was raring to go, as a few of the boys were.”

“It’s been very easy to reset,” he added.

“I had the benefit of coming in quite early and playing so I didn’t stew on it for too long.

“I had 12 days off and was straight back in. I think the rest of the boys who have come back in now, that’ll be firmly behind them now.”

Victory in Italy marked Glasgow’s first back-to-back wins of the season and both victories were helped by the partnership of Horne and Hastings.

The half-back pair were influential in the 50-0 demolition of Southern Kings and had even more of an impact at Zebre, as the scrum-half scored two early tries before Hastings added one of his own.

“I think we’re just on the same page a lot of the time,” Hastings said of their on-field chemistry.

“You can see when we swung back on the short side in the first half. A lot of the time it’s just about being on the same page as your nine.

“At Glasgow I think I work well with all the nines, but George is a little livewire and he always seems to get himself on the end of tries, which is good to play with.”

Hastings was left pleased with his own performance and that of his team-mates against Zebre, particularly given that they had to work hard on an unforgiving, heavy pitch.

“In those conditions, running it is maybe not the best option at times,” he said.

“Although I do think our balance between kicking and running was good.

“We ran when it was on, playing what was in front of us was key.

“It wasn’t perfect, we struggled at times, but all in all it was a pretty good performance.”