Bruce and Tom are the teacher’s Pets
Petrus stars at 38 but dubs Glasgow rookies real talent
OLD stager Petrus du Plessis shrugged off his super show to pile praise on rookie Warriors Bruce Flockhart and Tom Gordon.
The Glasgow player-coach came off the bench to shore up the scrum as Dave Rennie’s side left Treviso with a 38-19 bonus-point Pro14 win.
His 35 minutes marked a first appearance of the season after the 38-year-old moved on to the Scotstoun backroom team last summer.
But the South African tighthead pinned the plaudits on the pair of 22-year-olds.
Du Plessis said: “Bruce and Tom did a great job.
“Both were fantastic with ball in hand, their physicality and work rate.
“They put in huge shifts and took full advantage of their chance to impress.”
On his first venture on to the pitch in 12 months, he added: “I enjoyed every minute.
“It’s not hard for me to get up for games like this. I don’t have many left and this gave me a chance to gain respect from the players.
“Scrums are what I’m good at and in my first one we got the penalty, which lifted the energy. I left it all out there and I’ve got a sore nose to show for it!”
George Horne grabbed a try double as his brother Pete got a touchdown and four conversions to send Glasgow into the play-off places.
European duty beckons on Saturday with hopes of making the final eight taking a hit after two losses in four pool games.
Du Plessis said: “It was a super result but there were a couple of tries we should not have let in. We must learn from that in the build-up to our Champions Cup clash with Exeter at Scotstoun. We will take lots of positives into that challenge and step up even further.” Glasgow boss Dave Rennie dubbed Du Plessis “amazing” and added: “He did a lot of grafting and no wonder he had a massive smile on his face after the final whistle.”