Rennie dismisses Cockerill ‘twitchy’ comment

Glasgow coach Dave Rennie has refused to be dragged into another verbal joust with Edinburgh rival Richard Cockerill - claiming the latest mind-games from Warriors’ noisy neighbours are “irrelevant”.

The Scotstoun side will travel along the M8 on Saturday for the decisive 1872 Cup showdown at Murrayfield.

Glasgow have already booked a home semifinal slot for the Pro14 play-offs having topped Conference A.

But Cockerill’s Gunners still require a point to make sure they qualify out of Conference B for the quarter-finals - and the Englishman has attempted to turn up the heat on Rennie’s men.

He accused Glasgow of starting to look a “bit

“We’ll do our talking on the pitch – we’re here to stay”

twitchy” in the build up to the third and final derby encounter of the regular season as he insisted his team were good enough to win.

But Rennie, who has scrum-half George Horne as well as centres Sam Johnson and Nick Grigg returning to the starting XV, refused to bite and said: “Richard is just enjoying the spotlight.

“We’ll do our talking on the field. He’s entitled to his opinion, they’ve had a really good year, but anything he’s got to say is irrelevant.”

Cockerill, though, insists he is simply relishing the hype.

“It’s all good fun,” he said. “We will do our talking on the pitch as well.

“We’re here to stay and are going to keep working to make ourselves a better team and it will be a great test for us.”

Edinburgh have made just one change to the side that beat Scarlets convincingly two weeks ago, with Viliame Mata coming into the back row for Cornell du Preez.