GLASGOW WARRIORS head coach Franco Smith has made two changes to his backline for tomorrow night’s 1872 Cup second-leg at BT Murrayfield, with his pack unchanged from the unit which laid the platform for a gritty 16-10 home win in the first-leg against Edinburgh last Friday night.
Ali Price comes in to start at scrum-half with George Horne dropping to the bench, and Ollie Smith gets the nod ahead of Josh McKay at full-back.
On the bench, Nathan McBeth comes back into the match-day 23 after his late withdrawal due to illness ahead of the Scotstoun leg, with George Turner and Simon Berghan completing the front-row replacements. That means that there is no room in the match-day squad for Murphy Walker, who was due to start at tight-head last week but then dropped to the bench to cover loose-head following McBeth’s withdrawal, and ended up getting no game-time whatsoever.
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“Last weekend was an important win for us, but we know that the job is still only half done,” said Smith. “We were impressed with the professionalism of our squad in getting the result at Scotstoun last Friday. We know there is more to come from this group, though, and that has been the challenge we’ve put to the players this week.
“The onus is on ourselves tomorrow night; we want to go out and deliver the performance of which we know we are capable.”
Glasgow Warriors (v Edinburgh at Murrayfield, Friday 30th December, kick-off 7.35pm): O Smith: S Cancelliere, S Tuipulotu, S McDowall, K Steyn©; T Jordan, A Price; J Bhatti, F Brown, L Sordoni, S Manjezi, R Gray, M Fagerson, S Vailanu, J Dempsey. Substitutes: G Turner, N McBeth, S Berghan, J du Preez, L Bean, C Neild, G Horne, D Miotti.
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by my reckoning 9 of the starting 15 did not come up through the scotland system. not very encouraging
There is the potential to throw out a fully homegrown 23, but that included selecting a bunch of academy players aligned to Glasgow who are (sadly) uncapped at this level.
Oli Smith – Rufus McLean – Duncan Munn – Stafford McDowall – Ross McKnight – Ross Thompson – George Horne – Matt Fagerson – Rory Darge – Gregor Brown – Richie Gray – Scott Cummings – Zander Fagerson – Fraser Brown – Jamie Bhatti
Andy Stirrat – Christian Townsend – Jamie Dobie – Ally Miller – Alex Samuel – Murphy Walker – Tom Banatvala – George Turner
However we cant be developing academy players into pros when there are quality overseas journeymen to sign now can we.
Correct sir, McDowall seems to have everything but rarely shows very much/ if anything to suggest he is progressing
No Huw Jones?
With you on that one John, I’m not a great fan of McDowall, he has not developed as a player in my opinion.
Correct sir, McDowall seems to have everything but rarely shows very much/ if anything to suggest he is progressing
Very disappointed to see Huw Jones left out allways good to have that extra class on the pitch.