Scotland trio return for Warriors’ first leg of South African tour
INTERNATIONAL trio Ali Price, Alex Dunbar and Ruaridh Jackson will all make their first starts of the season for Glasgow Warriors as they attempt to maintain their early-season momentum in South Africa today.
It is a measure of the depth of quality that has been developed at the club that another Scotland back, Huw Jones, is also in line for a first appearance in this Guinness PRO14 campaign slightly ahead of schedule.
With two wins under their belt from their first two matches, the management feel the squad is as well set as it can be for the vital opening matches in their European Champions Cup campaign.
“We’ve had the odd guy who has played really well who has got a little more game-time than originally anticipated. What we know is we have to share the load, we have to leave some of our international boys out,” explained head coach Dave Rennie.
“A couple are missing this week, some will miss out next week and on our return home we’ll need fresh legs to come in. We haven’t changed a lot with regard to our thinking around selection.”
Injury and illness have inevitably affected their planning, however, with Jackson’s inclusion down to the need to give Stuart Hogg time to shake off the ankle injury picked up during last week’s defeat of Munster and Dunbar replacing Nick Grigg who is effectively in quarantine, sharing a room with fellow sickness victim Ryan Wilson, whose unavailability results in Scott Cummings being brought in at lock with Rob Harley shifting into the back-row. The only change which is down to selection is consequently the inclusion of Ali Price, with George Horne dropping to the bench and Rennie expects the man who was Scotland’s first choice scrum-half this time last year, to show that he is back to his best after having allowed his conditioning to slip in the second half of last season.
“I know he is keen and I know he is highly motivated. He has trained really well. I expect him to get out there and work really hard and deliver on his core skill sets. We don’t need any more than that,” said the coach.“He has come back and worked really hard and we just want to see the evidence of that in the weekend. There is plenty of competition for places in all slots in our team so you need to be at your best. Ali is aware of that and he will put his best foot forward.”