PETER HORNE has admitted his Glasgow Warriors homecoming has exorcised his Rugby World Cup blues.

The Scotstoun full-back was one of a number of Warriors who put their bodies on the line for Vern Cotter's side.

And he admits that the hurt from their quarter-final exit to Australia is only now beginning to heal.

It was helped significantly by Glasgow's bonus-point PRo12 win over Ospreys on Sunday.

He said: "It was brilliant to be back, I have had a great week, it was really good fun to be back among the boys again.

"It was nice to put in a good performance at the weekend and I felt my own performance was good.

"It needs to be the beginning of a run, we have talked about needing to win every game between now and the next break for the Six Nations so we will be going into every match looking for a great performance and a win.

"We still have boys to come back so training will pick up and we need to make sure we build on that. Cardiff next up will be a massive challenge."

The bigger job, however, will come the following week when they play Racing 92 with the possibility that match might see Dan Carter, the world player of the year, making his first appearance for the French club. "Fingers crossed," said Horne.

"It would be amazing to play against him. He has set the benchmark for every single back in the world and I am sure the rest of the back line, as well as me, have looked up to him for years to it would be great to play against him."

The Scotland players are anxious to take all the positives from the World Cup rather than dwell too long on the way it ended, though they know they cannot afford to rest on their laurels since their ambitious approach has not only caught the public's imagination but seems to be inspiring the even younger generation who have had a chance to make an impact while they were away.

For the ambitious teenagers in Edinburgh, there was another spot of good news with work starting yesterday on the new training facility at Edinburgh Napier University for the Scottish Rugby Academy based there. "It is very, very exciting to see it finally starting," said Graeme Beveridge, the centre's manager.

"The support we have had from the university in terms of facilities has been first class and this is just the next step. Come completion, hopefully next May, it will give the players a facility that is second to none.

"We will have a lot more space and the ability to shape the sessions even more to what we want. It will be a fantastic facility to develop both physically and skill wise."

His sentiments were echoed by Professor Andrea Nolan, its principal: "It gives our students and our staff an opportunity to work with a national sporting centre and an opportunity to mix with elite athletes.

"There is a huge range of opportunities for our staff researching sporting excellence and also for out students who may well be the coaches of the future," she said.