Jack Dempsey: Heat is on Glasgow Warriors back-row, just how he likes it

Formerly a Waratah and now a Warrior, Jack Dempsey took his first steps in European Cup rugby last weekend in Glasgow's defeat at La Rochelle.

He said he was filthy - in Aussie parlance, not best pleased - that they lost, but so much about the experience was memorable. The build-up, the noise in the stadium, the intensity on the pitch. Test-match quality for a club game. "I never really had that at home," he says.

The flanker, 27, is about to have it again on Saturday when Exeter and their stellar Scots arrive in Glasgow.

There's no telling what Covid might yet do to European rugby this season - or the Omicron Cup as it might come to be known if more matches fall by the wayside - but for now it limps on.

And for Danny Wilson's men, this is pretty much it. Having lost, albeit narrowly, against La Rochelle in round one they really need to put Exeter away in round two.

Dempsey is new in these parts, but he knows what's what. The heat is on, which is fine, because he seems to like it that way.

It's been four years since he won man of the match for the Wallabies in a victory over the All Blacks in Brisbane, a tour de force of carrying in attack and meanness in defence in the face of a New Zealand back-row of Liam Squire, Sam Cane and Kieran Read, whose cap total sits at 226.

Dempsey won his sixth cap that night. He's won only eight since, in part because of wretched injury, in other part because of a new team being created by Dave Rennie.

A week after downing the All Blacks, he ripped his hamstring off the bone against the Barbarians. He can give you all the gruesome details if you want, but we'll spare you. Basically, it was like being shot and it cost him 11 months. Longer, actually, when you consider the mental scars that had to heal.

The World Cup was his last Test appearance. Unless he's capped again by Australia, he'll be available to Scotland - the country of his grandfather's birth - this time next year under the new eligibility rules. Would he switch allegiance? "I'm not the type to overthink it," he says.

"There's not a shortage in the back-row, is there? Apart from all the other blokes, I play with Rory Darge at Glasgow and Dargey is non-stop from minute one to minute 80 - an absolutely brilliant young player. And I play with Matt Fagerson, who is one tough…"

The expletive police need to step in at this point, but suffice to say Dempsey is a fan of what Fagerson brings to the table.

And he adds: "This time next year Scotland might not give a [further expletive] about me, which is cool. I didn't come here for that. The rule changed after I signed. That's not what I'm thinking about."

He's thinking about Exeter and their monstrous efficiency close to an opponent's line and how to stop them. He's thinking about their capacity to turn the screw and grind the spirit out of a team, their proven brilliance in a battle.

"They're starting to find their form after a rusty start and they're world leaders in putting sides in hard places," says Dempsey. "I can't wait for it."

Dempsey has made a fine start to his Glasgow career. He can play and he can fight. He has footwork and heart. In conversation, the enthusiasm oozes out of him. "For me, every week is a new ground and a new experience and now a new tournament," he says. "I feel like I'm 20 years old again."

So let's go back to that. The 20-year-old Dempsey was a Michael Cheika project. When Cheika was Waratahs coach, Dempsey was in the academy.

Cheika asked him one day if he was anything to do with Tony Dempsey, the roughhouse Gordon back-row that he used to scrap with back in his Randwick days. Tony was his uncle.

If the young Dempsey had the mentality of his uncle, Cheika was going to champion him. And he did. He gave him his first professional contract, took him on his first professional tour, gave him his first Super Rugby start and his first Test cap. "He saw something in me and I'll always be thankful to him," Dempsey says.

Dempsey saw some things, too. Cheika was an A-list coach, a European Cup winner with Leinster in 2009, a Super Rugby winner with the Waratahs in 2014, a Rugby Championship winner and a World Cup finalist with Australia in 2015, when he was also named world coach of the year. He had, what you might call, a certain style.

"He was big on mentality and he unlocked a lot in my game," Dempsey recalls. "He used objects in his team talks, which were pretty legendary.

"The first time I realised it was when we played the Crusaders in 2015. We were top of the league and they were close and it was at home in Brisbane and it was big stuff. It was only my third match.

"He had a mirror up on the wall of the dressing room and the idea was that we all had to look at ourselves in the mirror every day. He had us all sitting in a circle before the game and he produced a sledgehammer. Or was it a mallet? Can't remember. Anyway, it signified our power in defence and he was waving it around as his speech was building to a crescendo and then he smashed it off the mirror and the shards of glass went everywhere.

"One piece came flying past me and caught me on the cheek. I cracked a smile at how mad it all was and Dave Dennis, our captain and an absolute club legend, whispered to me, 'don't smile, don't laugh'. He was absolutely stonefaced. He'd been in this movie before with Cheik."

Wilson's team talks must seem like nursery rhymes by comparison.

He hoovered up Cheika's knowledge and did the same with those around him on the park, particularly Michael Hooper, his back-row partner at the Waratahs and a man whose professionalism drives him on even now.

"Hooper was unreal," says Dempsey. "He first captained the Waratahs when he was 22. He also captained the Wallabies at 22. I pretty much played every one of my pro games with him at seven.

"He is so consistent, which is the thing I've struggled with. I've seen how hard he works and that's what I go back to in my own career. Am I working hard enough? Can I do more? That's his influence."

The move to Glasgow has been seamless, helped by the standard setters Ryan Wilson, Rob Harley, Fraser Brown and the retiring Pete Horne.

"It was hard to get Wilson on my side at first, it took a while," adds Dempsey. "As captain and gatekeeper of the team he has the final say. After my debut, against Ulster, he said, 'mate, the jury was out on you, but you did the jersey proud today'. That meant a lot.

"You don't want to let people down. I'm constantly chasing that feeling of proving myself and the moment that feeling goes is the moment you should move on."

No better team to prove yourself against than Exeter. No better time to do it than the here and now in the uncertain world of the Champions Cup.