HIGH HOPES FOR HOGG...
Rennie believes star will sign a new deal to remain at Warriors
Glasgow warriors head coach Dave Rennie is hopeful his star player stuart Hogg will sign a contract extension to keep him at the club.
Top English and French sides are waiting in the wings to make offers to the scotland full-back, who will be able to demand £800,000 a year wherever he goes.
although the sRU would have to double his current wage to match that figure, Rennie still believes there is a chance he won’t follow Finn Russell — who joined Racing 92 for £800,000 a year in the summer — out of scotstoun.
Hogg, who is out of contract next summer, is currently in south africa with the rest of the warriors squad preparing for their backto-back guinness Pro14 matches against the Toyota Cheetahs in Bloemfontein and the southern Kings in Port Elizabeth.
speaking from Johannesburg, Rennie said negotiations with Hogg about extending his deal had started but conceded the sRU — who own both Edinburgh and glasgow — would struggle to match the big-money offers sure to come in for him from France.
‘we’re keen to keep him here long-term and those discussions are going on,’ said the Kiwi. ‘He’s probably the highest-profile player in scotland. There will be a number of big clubs who will target someone of his ability.
‘I think he’s enjoying it here and he wants to stay. we want to keep him here, so we’ll see how that pans out over the next few months.
‘It’s always different for different people. I always felt it was a good move for Finn and he was keen to go. He was keen for a change, so that was always going to be a done deal. The situation with Hoggy is probably a little bit different.
‘It is very difficult to compete with the French clubs who are offering two, three times what we would offer players.
‘we have to focus on environment, culture and hope players will enjoy playing the type of footy we play and a team with good men where their game can develop and maybe cash in at the end of your career.
‘we want to keep people like Hoggy here but we have budgets and salary caps that we’ve got to work to and it’s well under what’s happening in France and England.
‘I guess we’ve got to prioritise. If you pay a lot for one player, then you need to cut back on other areas. The only other option is to spend more money on players or consistently try and bring good young kids through the system, which costs you less.’
Meanwhile, warriors were forced to travel to south africa without Niko Matawalu after a visa issue prevented him even boarding the flight to london for the first leg of the trip.
The issue with Matawalu, a Fijian international who can play at scrum-half or on the wing, was discovered after he handed his passport to warriors management in glasgow.
‘Niko isn’t here due to a visa issue,’ revealed Rennie. ‘He needs to tidy a couple of things up, so we thought it was better he sorted it out now rather than in a couple of weeks’ time when we have European away games in the Champions Cup.
‘our flight was delayed sunday night. we still flew to london on the sunday but had to fly out to south africa on the Monday morning at 10 o’clock. we were 15 hours behind schedule. when we got to Johannesburg, we trained morning and afternoon.’
The good news for Rennie is that warriors co-captain Callum gibbins has been cleared to play against the Cheetahs after he avoided being cited for what looked like a no-arms dangerous tackle against Munster.
‘what happens during a game is that the referee sees something out of the corner of his eye and he will say to his TMo: “Can you have a look at that?”,’ said Rennie. ‘The TMo looked at it and didn’t find any issues or didn’t find the footage initially. The Pro14 have looked at it and they didn’t find any issues. It was just a clean-out.’