Return of Warriors pair good news All round
◆ Dempsey and Steyn’s inclusion in side to face Toulon in crucial Champions Cup tie is a boost for Glasgow and for Scotland – but Darge still a worry
Smith has always said his role is to help Scotland as much as it is Glasgow Warriors and the South African appears to have killed two birds with one stone in that regard with his latest team selection.
The Glasgow head coach has found room in his starting XV for this evening’s crucial Investec Champions Cup match against Toulon for both Jack Dempsey and Kyle Steyn who have recovered from relatively serious injuries that has seen the pair play just three times between them since returning from the World Cup.
Steyn regains the captaincy and starts on the right wing, while Dempsey slots in at No 8 for a match that Warriors need to win to ensure their place in the last 16 of the competition.
Both players were named in the Scotland squad this week for the forthcoming Six Nations Championship and head coach Gregor Townsend will no doubt be happy to see them back, especially with injury concerns over othfranco er back-row and back-three candidates.
“Our S&C and medical team did a great job with both of them,” said Smith yesterday on the returns of Steyn and Dempsey. “To have them return to play and perform is always our mission and they’ve both looked really good. Both of them trained most of last week with us so it wasn’t much of a re-introduction for them this week. Hopefully they can express themselves in the game.
“He [Steyn] definitely could [play the full game if required]. But we have a lot of plans. We could pop George [Horne] on the wing like we often do with Ben Afshar coming in or we can put Stafford [Mcdowall] on at centre and move Huw [Jones] out. There are various
I don’t like losing, nobody likes losing. So it’s obviously an added ingredient Franco Smith
ways we can cover that. But I think Kyle would like the time out there. The reason we didn’t involve him last week was to allow him to play as many minutes as possible this week. We’ve no real intent to swap him out. It’s about allowing him as much time on the field so he can be an option for Scotland in the Six Nations.”
Rory Darge remains on a very tight timeline if he is to return for Scotland’s opening game away to Wales on February 3.
“He’s going into week four [of his rehabilitation],” added Smith. “That was a six to eight week injury that could come down to six weeks. But we will hand him over to Scotland next week and it will be up to them to decide how they want to deal with that.”
Glasgow Warriors head into this game tonight on the back of two successive defeats, something that has rarely occurred on Smith’s watch. Victory is imperative this evening and, if it could be achieved by getting revenge on the team that bested them in last year’s Challenge Cup final, then all the better.
“I don’t like losing, nobody likes losing,” added Smith. “It’s obviously an added ingredient to play the guys who knocked us out [in the final] and put a bit of a dampener on our season last year.
“There is a bit of a sensation that there is an opportunity to prove to ourselves that we are good enough to go all the way in the competition and we could have done it last year in that game if we had played better.”