Glasgow will stake their recent record playing Aviva Premiership teams up against any opposition including the powerful Northampton Saints in Saturday’s European Rugby Champions Cup clash at Scotstoun.
Delayed a week to start their campaign after last week’s game against Racing Metro 92 in Paris was unsurprisingly postponed in the wake of the terror attacks in the French capital, the Warriors are defending a strong home record against teams for the English league, pointed out defence coach Matt Taylor.
“We’ve met three Aviva Premiership teams here in the last three years, all of them were in the top four of that league when they came here, and we won all three games,” he pointed out. “The first of course was Northampton in my first season here and that was an exciting game with Peter Horne scoring in the last minute to win it.”
“They’re a good team, well coached and even if they were a wee bit complacent coming here last time, they won’t be now. Their head coach Jim Mallinder has talked about this being a tough place to play and we are expecting them to be at their best.
“Whether they have a bit more respect for us as PRO12 champions or not is tough for me to say. I think they’re a good team and we’re a good team and it should be a tough game.”
Turning from Racing to Northampton won’t be difficult as both sides play a similar sort of game, he added.
“They’re both very set-piece orientated teams, so a lot of the prepartion we did for the game that wasn’y played last week has suited this game as well. Maybe Racing play a bit more off the back of the scrum while Northampton are a little more power based.
“I was actually preparing for this game when everything started to happen on the Friday night in Paris; my wife was texting me to see if everything was okay, but I’d been watching video.
“It was the right decision not to play, people had passed away and we had to be respectful of that. Hopefully we can get the game played in the next couple of weeks.”
The positives are that the Warriors now have a home opener to their campaign and are fresh.
“We had a training session on Saturday when we didn’t have the game and we did a couple of the moves we want to do against Northampton. As professional coaches, you’re always working one week ahead in your preparations, so the coaches had met in the morning and talked through what we were going to do.
“On Tuesday we had one of the best training sessions we’ve had since I’ve been here. Hopefully, that puts us in good stead for the weekend. The guys were really up and aggressive and intense. It was great.”
That aggression and intensity can’t boil over into indiscipline, however, as it did for a part of the Warriors’ last outing in Cardiff when they surrendered far too many penalties.
“(Stephen) Myler is a good kicker so we’ve certainly talked about it, but as well as goals they will look to kick for lineouts they can drive,” he added. “You’ve got to be really disciplined to be a good team and we know the trends of the referee we have so we have been working hard to ensure that discipline is a major aspect.”
EPCR, the organising body for the tournament, announced yesterday that they were working closely with the three domestic leagues to fit the postponed games into rugby’s crowded calendar. A game in the second round of fixtures, Stade Francais’ home match against Munster set for the Stade Jean Bouin in Paris, was postponed yesterday.
It’s thought that with a free weekend for both the Top 14 and the Guinness PRO12 during the Six Nations some shuffling of the schedule may allow matches between clubs from those leagues to be played before Christmas, although there is no such window for the Aviva Premiership teams.
Meanwhile in the Scottish Rugby Schools Cup yesterday’s scheduled semi-final between the High School of Dundee and reigning champions George Watson’s College at Mayfield fell foul of the heavy rains of the last few days.
The repeat of the 2013-14 final of the competition has been re-arranged for next Wednesday, November 25, with a 2 pm kick-off.