GLASGOW plan to make “a couple” of further summer signings, according to Danny Wilson, as they aim to mount a sustained challenge for silverware.

The Warriors are fourth in the URC at present with four regular-season games to go, and are therefore still in line for a home quarter-final in the play-offs. But, having seen his team slump again on the road at the weekend when the game against Cardiff appeared to be in the bag, Wilson appears convinced that they need a harder edge to them if they are to become genuine title contenders.

The team has already announced two big signings for next season in Tongan No 8 Sione Vailanu and South African lock JP du Preez, but the head coach revealed last night that plans are well under way to recruit some more players of recognised quality. “We’re certainly looking to strengthen our squad,” Wilson said. “I think we’ve done that to an extent with the ones that we’ve announced - Du Preez and Vailanu are two big impact players in the forwards. We’ve got a couple more that we’ll perhaps be announcing at the relevant time as well.”

Asked if the new signings would be Scottish or not, Wilson continued: “I would say there is a bit of both. In this period now, even though our  international players are back, we have to manage and look after a few of them. We can’t keep playing them - and rightly so. We need a squad that can deal with that.

“We need to be able to get Scottish players out there and to develop Scottish rugby players, internationals and the next crop of internationals. That is 100 per cent our responsibility. But you have to do that with a sprinkling of talent that is here all the time - you're not going to lose it, you don't have to manage it, you've got it here playing when you need it. We need players like Josh McKay to bolster us when our internationals are away.”

Full-back McKay, back-row forward Jack Dempsey and winger Sebastian Cancelliere have all joined the Scotstoun squad this season, and all demonstrated their ability again at the Arms Park at the weekend, with Cancelliere scoring two of his team’s four tries. But the Warriors as a whole once more proved unable to see out an away game, allowing Cardiff to fight back from 13 points down to win 32-28.

While the team invariably compete to the death at Scotstoun even in games which they lose, they have put in substandard performances on the road far too often for  

Wilson’s liking. “It’s very frustrating, to be honest with you, that away from home we score a bonus point, four tries, by 42 minutes,” he continued. “You have to come away with a win there.

“The yellow card [for Cancelliere] hurts us then, in terms of taking a bit of momentum out of us on 50 minutes, and we don’t really get back into the game - we keep giving Cardiff field position and opportunities. And when you’ve got quality players like Jarrod Evans and Willis Halaholo, they’re going to score, and that’s what happened.

“So really disappointed in the final 30 minutes, and on the road that’s three times that’s happened to us. Scarlets I can see illness and an issue there that perhaps affected us physically; I think Exeter and this Cardiff game you’ve got to ask serious  

questions about going on the road and bridging the gap between being contenders and being a championship team.

“We spoke about it as a group - we did things a bit differently today and got opinion from senior leaders and from the playing group generally. We said a couple of times now it’s got to the point where we struggled to find a positive outcome from a series of negatives.

“As an example, after we concede a try, we get the ball back off the kick-off, we get turned over. Next thing we give a penalty away, next thing we give a penalty away, next thing we give a penalty away . . . . So without Cardiff really having to do anything, they’re five metres away from our line, and they score.

“Away from home it’s eradicating those doubled-up negatives. We only gave nine penalties away in the game, but I’ve just given you three that were on the bounce, on top of each other. It’s those small situations where we need to quickly stop the rot as opposed to letting the rot set in.

“And there’s a whole host of things that we’ve talked about. There’s the technical and tactical side of that and there’s a mental side as well. We discussed that today and it’s the next part of us achieving what we want to achieve.”

Glasgow play Zebre on Friday in their final home game of the regular season; a fixture that should yield five points. But whether they stay in the top four will then depend on how they perform in three consecutive away games - against the Stormers, the Bulls, and Edinburgh. They clearly have the ability to beat those teams, but the issue is whether they have the correct mindset as well.

“A championship team wins regularly on the road and that’s the next step for us,” Wilson concluded. “We’ve taken huge steps this season from last season, but the final steps are about being more consistent on the road.”