Franco Smith believes his Glasgow Warriors side are better equipped to deal with Leinster than they were a couple of months ago when they suffered a hammering in Dublin in the Investec Champions Cup. Smith’s team will return to the Aviva Stadium next weekend to play Leinster in the semi-finals of the United Rugby Championship. It will be the third meeting of the sides in eight weeks. Leinster blew Glasgow away in the European quarter-final in April with a devastating first-half display. They led 33-0 at the break and went on to win 52-0, scoring eight tries in an utterly dominant performance. The teams met again a fortnight ago in the final game of the URC regular season and a young Warriors side competed bravely before going down 13-5. The third installment of the Leinster-Glasgow trilogy will take place in Dublin on Saturday and Smith feels his team are better placed to handle the threat posed by the hosts. “Yes, definitely,” said the coach. “We saw a lot of grit against Leinster the last time [in the 13-5 match]. And you must put those games against them in perspective. The first one was in the middle of the season and we had a lot of injuries, Zander [Fagerson] and so many others at that stage. “The expectation that day was massive, they hadn’t played their top team since the Six Nations. Everything worked for them and nothing went our way that day. If that happens with Leinster they can put international teams away playing like that. That’s what we took from that. The next time we were less wary of the challenge and that will hopefully help us going back there.” Smith thinks Zander Fagerson is unlikely to have recovered in time from a calf injury to be able to play next week but the coach is more optimistic about the availability of some others and namechecked Rory Sutherland and Fin Richardson. Jack Dempsey, who has not played since the Six Nations, is another Glasgow are waiting on. The Warriors kept their URC title defence on track with an impressive 36-18 win over the Stormers on Friday and in doing so they ensured that the players leaving the club enjoyed the perfect send-off in what was the final game of the season at Scotstoun. Henco Venter in particular received a rousing ovation when he was substituted in the 72nd minute and the South African No 8’s departure will leave a huge hole to fill. It was his first match back after a six-game ban and he underlined his value with a first-half try and his all-round excellence. “He brought some freshness and some eagerness and he brought the boys back with him,” said Smith, “so, I’m really proud of him. He’s been a true Warrior. He’s a fantastic player to have in our environment and he will be surely missed.” Venter will join Brive in the summer, one of a number of players who are moving on. Tom Jordan, Jack Mann, Sebastian Cancelliere, JP du Preez, Sean Kennedy, Logan Trotter and Facundo Cordero also took their Scotstoun curtain call on Friday and Rory Darge said it was important they went out on a winning note. “It was really pleasing to get that performance for the guys who are leaving because we knew that, potentially, this was going to be their last opportunity at Scotstoun,” said the back-row forward. “Henco received a great reception coming off which was nice to see. He's just a top performer. Every time he goes out onto the pitch, I really enjoy playing with him. Hopefully, we've got a couple more games, but we'll have to get another good performance on Saturday, and I can't look too much beyond that.”