Keep calm and carry on, insists Rennie

Dave Rennie is not going to be rushed into a panic buy ahead of the decisive matches in Glasgow Warriors’ Champions Cup pool campaign in spite of both of his international hookers having been injury listed.

The head coach had to endure the worrying sight of seeing George Turner stretchered off the Scotstoun pitch with an ankle injury on Saturday, just three days after fellow Scotland hooker Fraser Brown underwent knee surgery.

However, while he is hopeful that Turner will not be sidelined for too long, Rennie expressed confidence in those currently on the club’s books, including former internationalist Kevin Bryce and Grant Stewart who performed well after replacing Turner on Saturday.

“We’ve still got a couple of hookers and we’ve got Robbie Smith, a young fella who’s trained a lot with us, so we’ve got reasonable depth there,” he said.

“We’ll be hoping we get George back, but him and Fraser are very similar types of hookers, very dynamic and important to us. You see how George carried tonight, but Grant’s got great feet, he’s a young kid coming through, so it’ll be exciting for him because it looks like he’ll get a decent crack next week.”

Victory over Cardiff in their next Champions Cup at Scotstoun in January could be enough to get Glasgow through to the quarterfinals and would set up a pool decider against English champions Saracens.

However, Rennie must manage his entire squad through two more hugely important matches as they take on Edinburgh home and away in the first of this season’s derbies on December 22 and 29.