WARY WILSON HAS HIS MAGIC POTION

RYAN WILSON is leaving nothing to chance ahead of Glasgow Warriors’ trip to Italy to face the Guinness Pro12’s bottom club Zebre. Packed in his suitcase will be a special juice concoction to prevent him catching the Norovirus that nearly cost his side victory last time the teams met in Parma. The back-row forward, who looks certain to captain Glasgow tomorrow night, was one of the few players not struck down by the sickness bug last April because he had taken a preventative drink which includes extracts from the Aloe vera plant. He was one of the lucky ones as 12 players, plus the coaching team including head coach, Gregor Townsend, were affected. The illness set in after D’Arcy Rae was sick following a team trip to Venice. A much-changed Glasgow team were 14-7 down by half-time and looked like falling to a shock defeat. Only a late second-half blitz, and a tiring Zebre, allowed them to run out 43-14 winners. ‘That may look like an easy final scoreline but it wasn’t because of the sickness bug,’ said Wilson. ‘It was a tough game as a lot of the boys had horrific stomach upsets. ‘We played Treviso first and then stayed on in Italy to play Zebre and it was during that time the boys started falling ill left, right and centre. ‘I was one of the few who were okay as my missus always gets me to take Aloe vera juice abroad and it worked. I’ll be taking it again, just to be on the safe side.’

ROB ROBERTSON