How do you get a rugby team to another continent in 72 hours?

URC Grand Final: Bulls v Glasgow Warriors

Venue: Loftus Versfeld Stadium, Pretoria, South Africa Date: Saturday, 22 June Time: 17:00 BST

Coverage: Follow unrecorded sum connected nan BBC Sport website & app and connected BBC Sounds

While Glasgow Warriors' players celebrated connected nan transportation connected Saturday, having conscionable secured a 4th URC last quality successful 10 years, 1 man began trying to lick nan biggest problem of his career.

John Manson, Warriors' caput of rugby operations and squad manager, had conscionable a fewer hours to fig retired really to get 47 players and unit complete 8,500 miles from Scotstoun to South Africa for nan showpiece 7 days later.

While nan 'The Rattlin' Bog' - Glasgow's accepted post-win chant - echoed astir nan Thomond Park changing room aft nan triumph complete Munster, Manson sat successful a corner, laptop open, frantically searching for last-minute flights.

"We did this travel a 5 aliases six weeks agone erstwhile we played nan Lions and nan Bulls," he explains.

"I planned that travel 12 months agone - nan training facilities, nan flights, hotels. We've had to organise that aforesaid travel successful 18 hours this time."

Alongside a sports recreation company, once-capped Scotland prop Manson worked done nan nighttime to benignant retired Glasgow's travel.

Getting each 47 members of nan squad and backroom squad connected 1 formation was impossible, though.

The group was divided up, flying retired connected different days from Glasgow, via Dubai, to Johannesburg.

"I sewage connected nan laptop astatine location astatine 01:00 connected Sunday and until 04:00 we were booking flights," Manson says.

"We had to spell done nan strategy and book and salary for them 1 astatine a clip until we sewage everybody connected nan flights."

But location was different problem.

"We want to get nan boys location successful nan champion imaginable conditions. That intends trying to get them business-class flights.

"There's 2 awesome issues to that. One is readiness astatine specified short notice. Second, is nan price. If they are disposable astatine all, they will beryllium betwixt £8,000-£10,000 a ticket. So there's a fund constraint location arsenic well."

Naturally, there's a scramble for those business-class seats.

So really do you prime who gets nan aureate tickets? Is it cookware luck? Not really. In this case, size matters.

"We can't beryllium Richie Gray successful system - he's 6ft 10in," Manson says.

"Oli Kebble and Zander Fagerson – 130kgs each - we physically can't beryllium these boys successful economy. It's not possible.

"We effort and onslaught a balance. We get arsenic galore boys arsenic we can, betwixt readiness and budget, successful business-class. The remainder of them, we effort and get other leg-room seats and get everybody location arsenic comfortably arsenic we can.

"The unit conscionable return nan hit, they ne'er get upgraded."

Some won't beryllium happy pinch Manson's selections. Accusations of favouritism abound.

"You effort and do your champion for everybody, but you are going to annoy 50% of nan boys," he says.

"I've been doing this a agelong clip now, my skin's beautiful thick, truthful I tin make a determination and I tin spell pinch it. It doesn't really fuss me.

"The boys spot maine and nan unit spot me. They cognize they whitethorn not get what they want, but they cognize that I'm trying my champion for them."

Thanks to Glasgow's caller travels, relationships person been formed pinch hotels and training bases successful South Africa.

Both nan Monte Casino Hotel and St Stithians College were tapped up past week astir a imaginable booking.

And what astir kit? The GPS trackers, nan h2o bottles, nan bibs?

"We conscionable allocated everybody an further bag, whether that beryllium nan lucifer kit aliases nan balls aliases nan cones aliases nan aesculapian bags, immoderate it was - personification checked successful an other spot of kit.

"It has each arrived, everything's present that we need."

Job done, panic over. But were location immoderate mixed emotions aft nan full-time whistle connected Saturday?

"Sure, nan adjacent portion was a symptom successful nan backside for 48 hours, but we wouldn't switch that for nan world," says Manson.