Danny: Warriors will have no Covid hangover for the derby
Glasgow coach Danny Wilson is convinced his team’s enforced threeweek break will have no effect on the intensity of action when they travel to take on Edinburgh on Saturday.
The Warriors had to call off a Champions Cup tie last weekend, as well as today’s scheduled home game against Edinburgh, when 20 players had to self-isolate – with four of them later testing positive for Covid.
With no further positive tests this week, Wilson was able to say in midweek that he was confident the PRO14 game at BT Murrayfield would go ahead as planned – and he expects it to be the usual high-energy battle with no quarter given by either side.
“Both squads when fully loaded are two really strong squads that will go hammer and tongs at each other,” said Wilson (inset).
“Derbies are the best games for me, they’re the most exciting.
“For me, any derbies that I’ve been involved in are the closest thing to internationals. There’s the intensity, you know each other inside out, and therefore selectors will pick off the back of those games.
“There will still be that niggle, that competitiveness. The players will still know that off the back of that game they go into the Six Nations camp where they’re all fighting for international opportunities.”
Wilson’s first two games in charge of Glasgow were against Edinburgh when rugby resumed at the tail-end of last season, and after losing the first match 30- 15 the Warriors won the second 15-3. The coach has not had his troubles to seek since then, as his team have so far won only two PRO14 games this season as well as being thrashed 42-0 by Exeter
Chiefs in their only Champions Cup match to date.
After being without a host of internationals during the Autumn Nations Cup, Wilson had most of them back for the Exeter game, and hopes that three weeks down the road they will put right the many things that went wrong in that one-sided contest.
He also hopes that Richie Gray will be passed fit to play following a spell on the sidelines with concussion, although Gray’s second- row partner, Leone Nakarawa, is probably a couple of weeks away from making his comeback after a knee injury.
If Gray does make it, he should come up against Edinburgh lock Ben Toolis, whose team are in a confident frame of mind after they fought back from a 12-0 half-time deficit last week to beat Sale Sharks 16-15 in the Champions Cup.
The bulk of the players on both sides are Scotland regulars and know each other well, but Toolis insisted that any friendliness would be firmly put to one side for the 80 minutes.
“We’re all mates off the pitch and we get on well with the Glasgow boys when we’re in camp,” he said.
“But at the end of the day it’s a derby and so you always find an extra bit of motivation and determination to try to play your best game and get the win.
“These are important games and they’re usually pretty entertaining, too. You thrive on that intensity and try to relish the moment.”