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Pro14 Round 14: Teams for the Weekend

Mark Bennett
Mark Bennett made his long awaited debut for Edinburgh Rugby vs Southern Kings - pic © Alastair Ross / Novantae Photography

Edinburgh face a tough game against Leinster but have a number of top players back including John Hardie on the bench and Murray McCallum fresh from his first cap.

Edinburgh team to face Leinster: 15. Dougie Fife, 14. Darcy Graham, 13. Mark Bennett, 12. Chris Dean, 11. Duhan van der Merwe, 10. Jaco van der Walt, 9. Nathan Fowles; 1. Jordan Lay, 2. Cameron Fenton, 3. Murray McCallum, 4. Fraser McKenzie (capt), 5. Lewis Carmichael, 6. Luke Crosbie, 7. Jamie Ritchie, 8. Bill Mata.
Replacements: 16. Neil Cochrane, 17. Rory Sutherland, 18. Matt Shields, 19. Magnus Bradbury, 20. John Hardie, 21. Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 22. Junior Rasolea, 23. Glenn Bryce.

At Myreside on Friday 9 February (kick-off7.35pm) – live on BBC ALBA.

Glasgow also have a pretty familiar look with the exception of Ratu Tagive who completes his comeback from injury. Adam Hastings gets a chance to show what he has picked up in Scotland camp and Rob Harley captains the side from the second row.

Glasgow Warriors team to play the Dragons: 15. Ruaridh Jackson, 14. Lee Jones, 13. Nick Grigg, 12. Brandon Thomson, 11. Ratu Tagive, 10. Adam Hastings, 9. George Horne; 1. Alex Allan, 2. James Malcolm, 3. Siua Halanukonuka, 4. Rob Harley (capt), 5. Greg Peterson, 6. Matt Fagerson, 7. Chris Fusaro, 8. Adam Ashe.
Replacements: 16. Grant Stewart, 17. Oli Kebble, 18. D’Arcy Rae, 19. Kiran McDonald, 20. Matt Smith, 21. Henry Pyrgos, 22. Paddy Kelly, 23. Niko Matawalu.

Not available due to injury: Brian Alainu’uese (knee), Fraser Brown (head), Scott Cummings (hand), Alex Dunbar (thigh), Zander Fagerson (foot), Callum Gibbins (achilles), Ryan Grant (groin), Rory Hughes (shoulder), Sam Johnson (jaw), Lelia Masaga (knee), Pat MacArthur (shoulder), Leo Sarto (shoulder), Tim Swinson (hand) and George Turner (knee).

At Rodney Parade, kick-off 7.35pm. Live on BBC Wales. 

34 Responses

  1. In other news, I like the look of the Warriors squad to face Dragons tomorrow. Impressive for a team missing 23 players through injury and international call-ups.

    1. looking forward to seeing Horne and Hastings play together, Defo the combination for the 2023 RWC if not before.

  2. Even with all the injuries & guys away with Scotland, we’re definately seeing a big improvement in squad depth with both Edinburgh & Glasgow from previous years. This period is often when qualifying for the Play-Offs is determined. Hopefully we’ll see the Warriors maintaining their grip at the top of their Conference & securing a home Semi with Edinburgh qualifying as well. It will not be easy on Friday however for either team. The Dragons are fielding as strong a team as they’ve had out this season & Leinster, well are just Leinster. Here’s hoping for a 3 pronged Scottish win success this weekend.

  3. Timings of these games and the U20s mean my living room will look like the sky sports office with games on three monitors.

    Hopefully at least one of them is good!

    Interested to see how Thomson goes at centre with Hastings/Horne, it’d be good to have another SQ centre-come-fly-half . Although hard to tell talent when it’s against a pro14 side as it can be quite a flattering league.

    Edinburgh have put out a pretty strong team. Expect a good win from them, especially with the progress made this season.

      1. these guys have beaten a full-strength glasgow squad and haven’t lost nearly as many players to the 6Ns. Home advantage I’d say will play a part, I reckon there’ll be a try difference

      2. The team that beat a full-strength Glasgow is not the same team playing Edinburgh – 2/3rds of those playing Edinburgh weren’t involved in the Glasgow game.

      3. Aye, this is a stern test for Edinburgh. Leinster are looking very impressive in the moment and can put out a strong team with multiple permutations. A win would be a really good result for Edinburgh and a real indicator of progress.

    1. Absolutely agree about the ( quality ? :) )problem of too many games clashing. Seems daft both our pro teams are on tv at exactly the same time. Don’t like channel hopping as you end up not really getting into either game, but seems inevitable ! My fault for following both teams equally I guess

  4. I’d say Edinburgh have a good chance against Leinster. Yes Leinster have so much squad depth but with 18 players on international duty with Ireland and only Fergus McFadden and Luke McGrath being released for this match Edinburgh stand a great chance.

    Edinburgh have Ritchie, Mata, McCallum, Bradburry, Fife, Van Der Merwe, Van Der Waalt, Sutherland, Bennet etc. who are all first team players available for this match as well as the up and coming Crosbie, Graham and Dean so every chance Edinburgh can bring away a win against Leinster.

  5. The sooner Glasgow rip up that concrete-esque plastic pitch the better. The number of injuries we have is ludicrous.

  6. Wee Duncy Weir is off to Worcester, it seems…Short term, but somehow I doubt he’ll be back.

    I guess Edinburgh also have Simon Hickey coming over. So assuming Tovey and VdW stay that makes a Saffer, a Welshman, and a Kiwi.

    Its not good enough in my view.

    SRU I think should force Edinburgh to do some work developing a young Scots stand-off. It’s our most vulnerable position talent wise and they’ve done bugger all, except take Weir off Glasgow’s hands. For 3rd/4th choice, what’s so bad about, say, Eastgate, or one of the academy players?

    1. Interesting wee article on Connor Eastgate – seems to have his head screwed on and they seem to think he wants to go for Scotland. Could do worse than him as a signing.

      1. We realistically should be aiming to have 3 fly halves anyway, we have No.1 – Finn Russell, No.2 – Peter Horne / Adam Hastings (Dependant on whether you class Horne as a 12), If we can blood Eastgate and nurture him then why not?

  7. Good workmanlike performance by Edinburgh. They have a great pack. Some good back signings next signing I think they will be challenging.

    Crosbie continues to impress, as do Ritchie, Mccalum, VDM and Fife.

  8. Great from Edinburgh, dire from Glasgow – Dragons should have won that, really. Edinburgh beating the form team in Europe and showing such determination and confidence was really heartening. Scottish rugby needs more of that and less of the Globetrotter nonsense that we keep messing up. Glasgow left a fair number of tries out there tonight. If they keep playing like that their 15-point buffer isn’t going to last very long.

  9. Glasgow just kept on screwing up in the Dragons 22 – just really poor discipline. Definitely 2 points dropped by Glasgow but a great result for Embra. They showed the kind of grit needed by the national team. Anyway Cockers can get more involved on the international scene?

  10. Great result for Edinburgh.
    Glasgow should have put Dragons away in the second half.
    G.Horne lively with a lovely little kick for the first try and great finish for the second. More than ready for a call up for me.
    Grigg was also a handful – surely better than Harris…..

  11. I watched both games yesterday (at the same time!) A strong performance from Edinburgh with the forward pack being particularly impressive. Bennett had a good game and will surely get a run out for the six nations in coming weeks.
    The Glasgow game was interesting- I think that the score flattered the Dragons who played well and showed attacking prowess. I did expect Glasgow to run away with it in the second half but this didn’t happen. Horne and Grigg were the stand out players, especially Grigg.

  12. Edinburgh were excellent V a very professional Leinster outfit. Great defense, perfectly timed replacements, 2 lovely kicks for the 2 later tries & an encouraging 80mins for Bennett. Van Der Merwe looks top class & SHC had a productive 25mins. Looking good

      1. Aye TeamCam I thought SHC was impressive last night, can’t quite put my finger on it why he’s not got back consistently to his sensational form of 2015

      2. Very good performance , I dont know why but Fowles seems to irritate me yet he does everything well. Good to see Hardie back.

      3. It could be that Fowles looks like Rob Beckett, so maybe you just want to smack him a bit? I think it’s that he’s solid but uninspiring, whereas SHC is dynamic and strong – he’s put in some big hits for a scrummy, I think he smashed Fardy or someone last night.

  13. It’s a learning experience for the Glasgow team. Hastings (unlike the experienced Sexton) will now know next time he must show leadership and demand for the drop goal.

    He was in position but he mustn’t of wanted it ( he was between 22 and 10 metre line.). Pyrgos should’ve known better.

    1. It was a very strange incident in the first half when the kicking tee did not appear on the pitch and Hastings tried to kick a conversion from hand and promptly missed. Why didn’t he wait and why didn’t he or someone in the team kick up a stink? Those lost points would have won the match.

      1. The support element from the sidelines is a crucial part of the professional setup. Some years ago I was at a Scotland friendly match and replacements were due for the final quarter, but the sideline organisation was so poor that one player was taken off the pitch before the replacment had removed his track suit. Scotland lost a try in the interim. Failure to get the kicking tee delivered is something that I have never seen at an amateur match.

  14. Like others have said, Some good performances from the younger players just a clear lack of leadership on the pitch to close out the game.

  15. Great result for Edinburgh. They’ve been on a good run with results but needed to show the same against the bigger teams. Really showing some progress. Well done lads.

  16. I’ve not seen the Edinburgh game (thought Glasgow was a better choice for a post Cardiff pick me up!) but that’s a fantastic result.

    Glasgow were infuriating. They seemed to kick aimlessly far too much. And then silly errors at key moments let Dragons relieve pressure when they did go through the hands.

    The sniping and overall performance of Horne was fantastic. Grigg picked some brilliant running lines and seemed to break tackles every time he got the ball. I also thought Hastings had some good moments but perhaps went a couple of steps too far before looking for support on a few occasions. Perhaps Niko could have come on earlier as the other winger wasn’t achieving much.

    The forwards were generally good. Ashe and Fagerson has some good carries but equally some carries where they got driven backwards. Harley seemed to go backwards on too many carries and gave away a lot of penalties. Line out was dominant. Just seemed to be that when we got in their 22 the forwards got pinged for sealing off. I’m not sure they were doing anything different in the rest of the pitch but the ref seemed to ping them in the 22. Offside was another area where he seemed inconsistent.

    All in all, points dropped by Glasgow.

  17. Warriors frustrating last night. This was exactly what Gibbins was brought in for: 6 Nations time when the developing youngsters need some quality players with experience to guide things through. His injury has been very unfortunate as his experience at the breakdown and his leadership would have got us the win last night. I am a great fan of Rob Harley but he had an off night and so leadership was not as apparent as we needed. I agree Horne and Grigg had very good games and Hastings showed plenty to give us hope for the future.
    Glasgow have some tough games coming up with Cheetahs at home, Munster away and Ulster away. That lead in Conference A may shrink!

  18. I agree – Harley was disappointing, Hastings showed potential but needs a bit more experience at this level, Gibbins has been hugely missed since his injury, and more so now.
    It’s a shame Grigg isn’t getting picked for Scotland (over Harris!) and unfortunately once Dunbar/Taylor/Bennett are fit he probably isn’t going to get much of a chance in the future.
    I think Horne might even be ahead of Price at the moment on form (for Glasgow, not counting the Wales game….), although I’m not sure if he has ever had a really big occasion under pressure to test his temperament.

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