The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Fagerson doesn’t miss beat as daddy duty becomes part of PRO14 Final preparations
Glasgow star immersed in nappies in build-up to Celtic Park clash
Zander Fagerson hasn’t shirked any of the paternal duties with his new baby daughter despite Glasgow’s season stretching all the way to the Guinness PRO14 Final.
Zander and wife Yasmine took delivery of baby Iona only a week past Tuesday, right in the middle of preparations for last week’s PRO14 semi-final against Ulster.
But not only did the big Scotland prop from Kirriemuir not miss a beat with the team, he didn’t miss any night duties or nappy changes either.
“I wasn’t going to the spare room,” he said. “She was supposed to come in April when we didn’t have a game but she decided to be a couple of weeks late and came during semi-final week.
“She’s doing great. It has been really awesome, I am really enjoying it. It’s the best job in the world.”
The 23-year-old was able to do much of the preparations for the impending arrival because of a long lay-off this season with a broken leg, but he’s roared back in to full confrontational form during Glasgow’s great run of nine successive league wins to reach the final.
“I certainly didn’t snap the leg to be fresh for now, although it’s worked out I guess,” he said.
“When you’re rehabbing, even when you have such a great support network around you, it’s still tough doing all that work, all the extras, coming in day-in dayout, pounding away when you are not seeing that much games.
“But it is all worth it when the boys are doing such an awesome job on the pitch. I just thought, ‘If I do my job and get in a position to play if we get into the final I can be quite chuffed with myself’.
“So it is awesome to be here and I’m proud of the boys for what they did.”
It’ll be Zander’s first time at Celtic Park, not surprisingly as his football affiliation is Peterhead.
“It comes from my grandfather, he was a fisherman up there. I was never built for football, as you can tell, I knew that from a young age,” he explained.
“Any stadium is awesome and playing in front of a crowd that big is an honour every time. There were 10,000 there for the semi-final and the noise was incredible, so you wonder how 30,000 Glasgow fans might be.”
Fagerson said: “I’ve never been to Celtic Park – I was a Peterhead fan growing up.
“But I’ve heard it is awesome. A few of the boys have been before and say it’s great. They’ve been talking about the atmosphere it can produce and I hear there’s a big crowd expected.
“It’s been building all season for us. Saturday is a massive opportunity to do something special in our own city so we can’t wait.
“It’s been a massive squad effort. There’s been more than 50 boys who have played for Glasgow this season so that speaks to the great academy structure and the depth in every position that we’ve got.”
Fagerson knows the Leinster ( and Ireland) front row well, and smiled at the recent memory of shoving Cian Healy, Sean Cronin and Tadhg Furlong off the first scrum when the three were brought on in the league game at the RDS last month.
“Those are two British and Irish props and Cronin is a good dynamic player as well,” he said.
“Munster did a good job on them at the weekend. We’ve done our analysis and we know that when when it comes to finals rugby then Leinster is a different animal.
“They step it up another level so we can’t read anything into that game three weeks ago. It is a clean slate but we have a pretty dynamic front row as well.
“Last week we did not have a set game plan to go absolute tonto and score a try right off the bat, but we will take it. We did our homework and executed and hopefully we can do the same this week.”
Fagerson was in his first season at the Warriors when they won the old PRO12 title in 2015, but missed the semi-final through illness and the final because he went with the Scotland U20s to the annual FIRA Championship.
“I played eight games that year, but was at the junior World Cup in Italy when the final was on and watched it over there,” he said.
“A few things have changed. We have done our work, our review, and this has been a normal week for us. Everybody at the club knows this is what you work every day for, why you come in and it is an exciting time.”
Meanwhile Warriors have announced that two further members of Dave Rennie’s squad will be remaining at the club next season, after securing the futures of prop Siua Halanukonuka and centre Paddy Kelly until the summer of 2021.
Tongan tight-head Halanukonuka has become an integral part of the squad since arriving from Super Rugby last season while Highland RFC product Kelly made his debut for Glasgow in November 2016 and has made four appearances this season.