After a 1 week suspension for the PapeSlappe™, Phil Burleigh will sit out the return leg in Paris tonight. Despite a citing commissioner’s warning, Pascal Pape will set the tone at captain for the home side. Sergio Parisse also returns for the Stade.
Burleigh’s place is taken by Chris Dean, and Jason Tovey also comes in to replace Duncan Weir who despite having a storming second half last weekend, had a bit of a shocker in the first – he wasn’t alone. The pack is shuffled again – still no sign of WP Nel – with the return of Cornell du Preez good news for Duncan Hodge. Up front things are settled in with the in-form Dickinson/Dell pairing at loosehead but the search for Nel’s understudy continues with Simon Berghan starting, having impressed last week.
Stade Francais: Hugo Bonneval, Jeremy Sinzelle, Geoffrey Doumayrou, Jonathan Danty, Josaia Raisuqe, Jules Plisson, Clement Daguin; Emmanuel Felsina, Remi Bonfils, Rabah Slimani, Hugh Pyle, Pascal Pape (capt), Jonathan Ross, Sekou Macalou, Sergio Parisse.
Replacements: Craig Burden, Zurabi Zhvania, Giorgi Melikidze, Mathieu de Giovanni, Sylvain Nicolas, Arthur Coville, Morne Steyn, Julien Arias.
Edinburgh: Blair Kinghorn, Damien Hoyland, Michael Allen, Chris Dean, Tom Brown, Jason Tovey, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne; Alasdair Dickinson, Ross Ford (capt), Simon Berghan, Fraser McKenzie, Ben Toolis, Cornell Du Preez, Hamish Watson, Nasi Manu.
Replacements: Neil Cochrane, Allan Dell, Murray McCallum, Lewis Carmichael, Viliame Mata, Sean Kennedy, Duncan Weir, Glenn Bryce.
In other news, it seems that Jason O’Halloran has followed Gregor Townsend in turning down the opportunity to work with/under Rob Harley on the Lions Coaching team, in favour of preparing the Glasgow squad for the arrival of Dave Rennie who could be delayed by Super Rugby.
World Rugby have also announced changes to the laws to protect player’s heads. World Rugby has redefined illegal (high) tackle categories and increased sanctions to deter high tackles via a law application guideline. This will apply at all levels of the game from 3 January 2017 introducing minimum on-field sanctions for “reckless” (yellow) and “accidental” (penalty) contact with the head effectively lowering the acceptable height of the tackle.
Glasgow have announced that Henry Pyrgos has signed a new contract, joining Jonny Gray and Stuart Hogg in sticking with the Warriors rather than moving on. He’s just one of a host of players out of contract next season across the pro-teams and the SRU will be trying to pin them down or shift them on as soon as possible.
Despite that, he’s brought down to earth with a bump as he has to sit the bench behind Ali Price for a second week running in the side to face Racing 92 on Friday night (k.o 7.45pm, live on BT Sport and BBC Radio). The match at Scotstoun is a 7,351 sellout.
Simone Favaro also sits it out through injury and he’ll be a big miss in the defensive line. Glasgow need a big game from Josh Strauss on his 100th appearance to allow Wilson and Harley to focus on tackling…
For Racing, Dan Carter resumes his face off with Finn Russell and big Naks packs down at 8. Interesting…
Glasgow: Stuart Hogg, Tommy Seymour, Alex Dunbar, Sam Johnson, Lee Jones, Finn Russell, Ali Price; Gordon Reid, Fraser Brown, Zander Fagerson, Tim Swinson, Jonny Gray (capt), Rob Harley, Ryan Wilson, Josh Strauss.
Replacements: Corey Flynn, Alex Allan, Sila Puafisi, BA, Chris Fusaro, Henry Pyrgos, Mark Bennett, Sean Lamont
Racing 92: Brice Dulin, Teddy Thomas, Casey Laulala, Anthony Tuitavke, Marc Andreu, Dan Carter, Maxime Machenaud (c); Viliamu Afatia, Camille Chat, Ben Tameifuna, Gerbrandt Grobler, Francois van der Merwe, Wenceslas Lauret, Chris Masoe, Leone Nakarawa
Replacements: Dimitri Szarzewski, Eddy Ben Arous, Cedate Gomes Sa, Thibault Dubarry, Antonie Claassen, Xavier Chauveau, Benjamin Dambielle, Joe Rokocoko