The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Fringe players praised after Glasgow win
ZEBRE 20 GLASGOW 40
Glasgow Warriors head coach Dave Rennie reckons his fringe stars earned their stripes by hunting down a top-notch Zebre outfit on Saturday.
The Warriors rattled up six tries to snuff out the challenge of the enterprising Parma side.
And boss Rennie admitted he couldn’t have wished for a better start to the year.
Glasgow are now virtually assured of a PRO14 title playoff place – and now the coach wants them to make sure they go straight into the semis and earn a homeland tie.
Rennie said: “To claim five points over here is a fantastic result because they are an excellent team just now. They love to offload – and a huge number of offloads stuck for them.
“Their ability to keep the ball alive was excellent and they asked some real questions of us.”
Rennie picked out rookie scrum-half George Horne and centre Nick Grigg for special mention.
Both grabbed touchdowns, and he added: “George put a lot of pressure on the established number nines. I thought that Nick gave us enormous go-forward. He is really hard to contain and it’s great to see guys like that stepping up.”
Rennie, whose side face Leinster in Dublin this weekend, was also delighted with the contribution of breakaway forward Adam Ashe on his return from several months on the casualty list.
He said: “Adam got 60 minutes and he did well to take the opportunity down the short side to set up George’s try.
“We’ve got a fair few injured at the moment so to see a few guys who haven’t played an awful lot recently coming back was good.
“We’re creating competition for places which is what we want. We know we’re going to be missing a fair few during the international window so they’ll be important.”
Lee Jones grabbed two tries and a penalty try, while others came from Zander Fagerson, Horne and Grigg. Finn Russell bagged five conversions.