Townsend impressed as Warriors show ‘best’ effort
Gregor Townsend believes that his Glasgow Warriors squad are better equipped than ever before to use this Six Nations window as a launchpad for a tilt at securing a home draw in the Guinness Pro 12 play-offs.
Despite routinely losing almost a full team of players to international duty at this time of year, Glasgow have tended to emerge from the period with their title credentials enhanced – and they are determined to carry on that pattern when taking on the Scarlets, Ulster, the Ospreys and Newport Gwent Dragons over the next four weekends.
“The last two weeks have been really good from a coaching perspective,” said Townsend. “You’ll have to ask the players what they think, but the way they are training I think they have enjoyed it. They worked really hard last week and our training has been at a high level.
“Isaidtothemthatthequality and effort they have shown is the best I’ve experienced during my time here. That’s down to two things: the players’ ability and application, and also that we have a good situation injury-wise.
“Sometimes when you have 13 or 14 players away sessions aren’t that great because you only have 20-odd at training so you can’t do the 15 versus 15 stuff, but we had 32 on Monday and Tuesday, so there is a lot more we can do. You’ve seen the team we are putting
0 Gregor Townsend: Quality. out [this weekend] – it is a good team and there are people pushing in behind as well. So, it has been a really good twoweek preparation – we just need to transfer that into the game,” he continued.
“If we do well during this period it really sets us up for the run-in. This is where we show the strength in depth of our club. It can be tough – especially this year when three out of the four teams we play are in the top six. But we feel we have the players to do well.”
The Warriors have named three players – scrum-half Henry Pyrgos, flanker Rob Harley and prop Alex Alan – who have been training with the Scotland squad during the last fortnight in their team to take on the Scarlets at Scotstoun tonight.
“We’ve not had them this week until today, and that is tough for them more than us as coaches, but it was great that they could come in last Friday and we’ve put things up online for them to look at in terms of plays, so they’ve all done their homework. Henry is our captain, Rob is our most capped player and Alex is very professional, so we feel they they’ll get into it very quickly,” said Townsend.
The side is further bolstered by the return from injury of winger Rory Hughes (who has just signed a two-year contract extension), second-row Scott Cummings and centre Richie Vernon (who will start on the bench).
Stand-off Brandon Thomson, who has been signed on a two-month loan deal from the Stormers in South Africa, will get his first taste of rugby in Scotland playing for Stirling County against Watsonians.
The Warriors are currently fourth in the Pro 12 table, while the Scarlets are just one point behind in fifth place.
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Scotland under-20 centre Craig Pringle is excited by the prospect of playing in front of a large crowd this evening when they take on France in Grenoble.
Local reports suggest that around10,000maybeinthe Stade des Alpes for the Six Nations clash as both sides look to bounce back from opening defeats. The Scots were edged out 20-19 by Ireland while France were humbled 59-17 by England.
Pringle put in an assured performance on his under-20 debut seven days ago and the 20-yearold Stirling County player said: “We were disappointed last week because we did not play as much rugby as we would have liked and Ireland came back at us.
“However, it was the first time that we had properly played together as a group and I think there is a lot more to come from us.
“We know that the French like to run the ball and we are hopeful of doing that too.
“The large crowd will be noisy, so we will have to fully focus on our own game. This week in training has gone really well and we are all excited for the challenge.”
Ayr full-back Stafford Mcdowall and Glasgow Hawks back-row Bruce Flockhart have come into the Scotland starting XV while France give a first start to Romain Ntamack, the son of ex-international player Emile, at stand-off.