Road trips loom for Edinburgh and Glasgow in Pro14 openers
● Cockerill’s side to face Ospreys in curtain-raiser ● Warriors head to Galway to take on Connacht
Both Edinburgh and Glasgow Warriors will begin the 201819 Guinness Pro14 campaign on the road.
Edinburgh will be involved on the first night of action when they travel to the Ospreys on Friday 31 August while Glasgow are at Connacht the following day.
The Warriors will also head to South Africa for two matches during a tough first month of the season. Indeed, just four of the ten matches being played by Scottish clubs during August and September are on home turf.
However, it should benefit the Scots side to get some of the tougher away assignments under their belts while all of the internationalists are available before the Autumn Tests and Six Nations begin.
Edinburgh finished third in Conference B last term while Ospreys were fifth in Conference A and Richard Cockerill expects a tough opening match in Swansea. “Ospreys will be a different side again, with new coaching staff and players and any away game is going to be tough, but we will go there with the mindset to win,” said the Edinburgh coach.
Last season Edinburgh came from behind to defeat the Ospreys at Myreside 37-10.
Australian Andy Friend has taken over at head coach of Connacht – with the match against Glasgow going to be
his first competitive match in charge. Glasgow were also in Galway to start last season, the Warriors coming through that one 18-12 in terrible conditions before winning 35-22 at Scotstoun in April.
Connacht struggled last term and were sixth in Conference A, which Warriors topped.
The Warriors will be the first Scots side to play at home with Munster heading to Scotstoun on 7 September while Edinburgh fans will have to wait until 14 September for a BT Murrayfield game against Connacht.
The first of three meetings between the two Scottish clubs is scheduled for 22 December at BT Murayfield with the first Scotstoun clash seven days later.
Having been beaten by the
Scarlets in the semi-final last year, the Warriors will get a chance for revenge on 1 December at Scotstoun.
Edinburgh were knocked out in the quarter-finals of the play-offs last term by Munster and they head there again on 30 November.
The Conference line-ups remain unchanged for the upcoming campaign, meaning that over the first two years of South African clubs being involved each team will have played the same number of regular season games home and away.
This means that Glasgow Warriors are once again in Conference A, with Edinburgh in Conference B.
Reigning champions Leinster are away to Cardiff Blues first up on 31 August.