Warriors’ untried to be tested by Ospreys

WHEN your play-off ambitions are hanging by the most sle nde r of thre ads and you are about to visit one of the te ams who have be e n dominating the Guinne ss PRO12 all se ason, the last thing you want is to be blooding raw, untrie d playe rs.

That, though, is e xactly the he adache facing Gre gor Townse nd, the Glasgow Warriors he ad coach, who is giving a club de but to one playe r, a first start to anothe r and a first outing in his spe cialist role to a third.

Townse nd said: “We will give it e ve rything down at the Ospre ys knowing that we have to start picking up points. It is e xciting whe n you have playe rs from last se ason’s unde r-20s ge tting a go, what we like from those playe rs is that the y re ally take the game to the opposition.”

In all, he has thre e of last se ason’s Unde r-20s in action, le d by Scott Cummings, score r of two trie s from the se cond row last we e k, along side Le wis Wynne , ge tting his first run at No.8 since last ye ar and Matt Smith, who is making his de but.

The re is anothe r ne wcome r in the front row whe re Me lrose ’s Jamie Bhatti – who will join Glasgow ne xt se ason – ge ts his first start afte r an impre ssive rumble off the be nch last we e k and thre e we e ks afte r arriving Brandon Thomson ge ts a chance to play at fly-half.

With all that ne w blood around, the ir chance s pre tty much de pe nd on the e xpe rie nce d spine of the te am with Pe te r Horne taking ove r the captaincy and the like s of forme r All Black Core y Flynn at hooke r.

D Evans; K Giles, A Beck, J Matavesi, H Dirksen; L Price, B Leonard (C); P James, H Gustafson, B Mujati, L Ashley, R Thornton, T Ardron, O Cracknell, D Baker. I Phillips, G Thomas, R Jones, J King, S Underhill, T Habberfield, K Fonotia, D Howells.

P Murchie; J Bulumakau, N Grigg, P Horne (C), R Hughes; B Thomson, G Hart; J Bhatti, C Flynn, S Puafisi, B Alainu’uese, S Cummings, R Harley, M Smith, L Wynne.

P MacArthur, A Allan, D Rae, T Uanivi, C Fusaro, N Kenatale, R Vernon, R Tagive.