The morning after the night before and there were some sore bodies among the Glasgow Warriors squad after a bruising encounter with the Bulls at Scotstoun. Franco Smith’s side may have lost 26-19 but two late tries secured an important bonus point to maintain their hold on second place in the United Rugby Championship with two rounds of fixtures remaining. Their lead on the third-placed Bulls has been cut to a single point but Smith remains hugely proud of what his team has achieved this season. They have already secured a home play-off quarter-final and if they can hang on to second place they will also have home advantage in the semi, should they qualify. Their final two league games are away, at Benetton and Leinster, while the Bulls will take on Cardiff and the Dragons in Pretoria. Jake White’s side have the easier run-in but Smith believes the character his team showed in winning the URC last season will stand them in good stead. Memories are still fresh of how they overcame Munster in Limerick in the last four last year and then defeated the Bulls in the final at Loftus Versfeld. White’s team extracted a measure of revenge at Scotstoun on Friday evening but Smith was not disheartened. “I asked the boys, ‘who wants to play the semi-final at home?’ And they all raised their hands,” said the Glasgow coach. “But if we don't, we've already qualified for the quarter-finals at home. It's exactly the position we were in last year and we got it done. There's great character in this group. “We are a little bit depleted and under the pump around various injuries. But again, if you are the main target of everybody in the competition, you would expect the boys to be physically challenged every week. “The reason I'm so proud of this team is that we qualified for a home quarter-final in the most difficult season of the league. We were the target of everybody. Every game we had to fight to win. “We've done brilliantly up to now. There's so many accolades that should come to these boys, and they're physically tired. Most of them have played four Test matches in November and they've played the whole Six Nations. “Are we in a right good place? Fantastic. Do we need to kick the can over because we lost on Friday night? No. “At 26-7 down, we could have just rolled over. I think if I was a Glasgow Warriors supporter, I would still be very, very proud and excited about what can happen.” Glasgow now have a free week in which to rest before preparations begin for their next game, in Treviso on May 10. Smith hopes a few of his long-term casualties will be fit to return to face Benetton, notably Sione Tuipulotu and Huw Jones, but the Warriors also picked up a fresh batch of injuries against the Bulls. Jack Mann, Gregor Brown and Patrick Schickerling all had to come off and Smith seemed downbeat about the trio of forwards who suffered “trauma injuries”. “We're going to lose at least three,” he said. “Patrick Schickerling played with a badly injured foot for 40 minutes. He basically, in the first scrum, got injured. With Jack, we’ll see if it’s a pec or chest. It’s that area. Gregor is his knee - again it’s a tackle on the legs. “We're concerned about it, but at the same time, now we've got a week off, and then there's some other bodies coming back in the building. It was good to see Scott Cummings coming back after a fractured arm [he played the final 20 minutes against the Bulls] and be confident against a very physical pack. That was heartwarming.” Cummings may have returned but Jack Dempsey (hamstring), JP du Preez (head), Matt Fagerson (ankle), Zander Fagerson (calf), Angus Fraser (ankle), Josh McKay (ankle), Ally Miller (back), Fin Richardson (back), Duncan Weir (shoulder) and Rory Sutherland (shoulder) all remain sidelined along with Tuipulotu (pectoral) and Jones (ankle). In addition, Henco Venter is suspended.