Dave Rennie will need every bit of his increased squad when the international programme starts in November but Glasgow’s new head coach is being forced into full use of it already.
And oddly it’s not the pack who are stretched but the wings, with Rennie forced to field returning British and Irish Lion Tommy Seymour and the re-signed Niko Matawalu ahead of schedule for tonight’s Guinness PRO14 visit to a Cardiff side desperate for a win.
Former All Black Lelia Masaga pulled up in training yesterday with a calf problem and the plan to have Seymour on the bench and giving him at most a half hour of action has had to be redrawn.
Instead Seymour starts while Matawalu, who was expected to need a couple of months to get upo to speed, is on the bench.
“Obviously, Tommy hasn’t had a lot of footy in the last few weeks, but he has been training and he has really impressed,” said Rennie. “So I’m looking forward to seeing him out there.
“He is a quality player and has a lot of experience. He’s a string communicator, gives a lot of voice in the backs so we’re excited to have him back in the mix.”
Matawalu has been impressive in training despite his lack of recent action, added Rennie.
“We have put a lot of time into Niko and we have a fair few injuries out wide with Leila and Rory Hughes, Leo Sarto and Robbie Nairn all out injured,” said the coach. “It’s a little bit earlier than we thought but he is ready to go.
“Initially, we’re looking at him as a winger. We have good resources at nine and we are keen to give George Horne a bit of a crack because he was training really well preseason and was pretty impressive in both trials. We certainly have good depth there.”
Henry Pyrgos will start at the scrum-half and captain the side as Ryan Wilson has a neck injury. The club captain is replaced by Matt Fagerson and while rotating elsewhere, Rennie has kept the same front five for the first three weeks, including Tom Swinson making his 100th appearance for the club tonight.
Horne, who has impressed Rennie, is on the bench with his elder brother. A third Howe of Fife product, Chris Fusaro, features on the bench.
“Because Cardiff lost the first couple of games they will be desperate, we are well aware of that,” continued Rennie. “We have won our first two but we are far from the finished article. There has been a lot of focus on tidying up key parts of our game.
“You underestimate any team in this competition at your peril. We’ve got a really long way to go to get our game right so we’ve worked really hard again this week.
“We know that Cardiff in Cardiff are a much stronger proposition and they’ve got a reasonably tough string of games coming up so we know they’ll be desperate for a win and we’ll need to be able to front up physically.”
Glasgow (vs Cardiff, Guinness PRO14, Arms Park, ko 7.35 live on S4C): Ruaridh Jackson; Tommy Seymour, Nick Grigg, Alex Dunbar, Lee Jones; Finn Russell, Henry Pyrgos (capt); Jamie Bhatti, George Turner, Zander Fagerson; Tim Swinson, Scott Cummings; Matt Fagerson, Callum Gibbins, Adam Ashe. Replacements: Pat MacArthur, Alex Allan, D’arcy Rae, Brian Alainu’uese, Chris Fusaro, George Horne, Peter Horne, Niko Matawalu.
