Townsend has no intention of taking reins at Harlequins
GREGOR Townsend has insisted that he will honour his contract with Glasgow Warriors and that he has not been approached by Harlequins, who have an impending vacancy for their director of rugby.
A report in a London newspaper said the Warriors head coach had been identified by the English club as a possible successor to Conor O’Shea, who is quitting as their director of rugby to take charge of the Italian national team. But Townsend, whose team play Scarlets in Wales this afternoon, made it clear that he intends to stay in his present post throughout next season.
“There was a story in the press that is a complete non-story,” he said yesterday. “I am contracted here next year and that is where I will be staying.
“People get linked to jobs all around the place, but, as you know, I signed a contract for next year and I’m really looking forward to being here next year. I wasn’t approached by them, and will not be talking about this again.”
Contracts can, of course, be bought out, and that happened last year when Bath paid compensation to Edinburgh for their under-contract forward David Denton. Leone Nakarawa is also due to leave the Warriors for Racing 92 in the summer despite still having a year left to go on his current agreement, while Greig Tonks was allowed to leave Edinburgh for London Irish earlier this year even though he was contracted until the summer.
The key in each case was the willingness of Scottish Rugby to negotiate a release fee, and the result has been the establishment of what amounts to a minor transfer market. But, when those cases were put to him, Townsend implied he would not be a similar case.
“I’m contracted until next season,” he said. “Don’t throw these curve balls in there. I’m staying here.”
Nakarawa and another departing star, Taqele Naiyaravoro, are on the bench for this afternoon’s game in Llanelli, where a win can help the Warriors close in on their goal of a home semi-final in the play-offs. Scarlets, the pace-setters earlier in the season, are three points behind Glasgow in fourth, while the Warriors themselves have been closing in on the top two thanks to seven consecutive victories.
They won narrowly at Scarlets on European duty earlier in the season, and Townsend is ready to turn to the firepower of the Fijian and the Australian late in the game if it hangs in the balance. “We know Leone and Taqele’s strengths, and everyone in the squad has a role to play. It’s one of those positions where we have so much competition.
“Greg Peterson has been playing really well, Jonny [Gray] has been consistently outstanding in attack, defence and set-piece, while Tim [Swinson] has really come on to a good game with Scotland and now us. It’s a very good situation for me to be in where we can have someone like Leone on the bench.”
Stuart Hogg and Josh Strauss both start for Townsend’s team after being rested last week, but there is no place for centre Peter Horne, who has concussion. “It was in a game,” Townsend added. “It was delayed, so when he started training this week he felt a headache, so he started the [head-injury assessment] protocol on Tuesday, I think. It’s a shame for him, because he played really well last week – but so did Alex [Dunbar] and Mark [Bennett], so we’ve got a good combination at centre.”
Up to 20 members of the Scarlets squad were said to have fallen ill earlier this week, but the team named yesterday has only a few absentees through physical injury. “It sounds like what we had last week in Italy,” Townsend added. “If it’s a similar bug it’s out of the system in 24 hours.
“We had to cancel a training session we had planned for the Tuesday against Treviso, although our forwards still trained against them. Most of our backs were down but they still played at the weekend. We expect Scarlets to be at full strength.”
Former Warriors DTH van der Merwe and John Barclay are at left wing and No 8 respectively in the Welsh team, while Liam Williams returns at full-back to make just his second appearance of the season.