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PRO14 Round (hmm): Glasgow vs Edinburgh

Glasgow vs Edinburgh - graphic © Scottish Rugby Blog

Venue: Scotstoun Stadium, Glasgow
Kick-off: 19:35
Referee: Mike Adamson

Following the turgid display at BT Murrayfield last weekend, Danny Wilson has made four changes for the return fixture that has been re-scheduled from Round 9 after Glasgow had to call off with a number of players Covid isolating.

Young backs Ross Thompson (standoff) and Rufus McLean (wing) will make their first starts for Edinburgh’s visit to Scotstoun as perhaps an early sign that Glasgow need to start bringing forward their young talents sooner rather than later given the fairly obvious gaps in their squad.

Oli Kebble’s return to full fitness sees the newly-minted Scotland prop come into the lineup at loose-head, joining George Turner and Zander Fagerson in the front row where there will be another tussle for the purists against a strong Edinburgh scrum that will be bolstered in behind by the return of lock Grant Gilchrist from the groin injury that has kept him out since October.

Up against Gilchrist, Richie Gray will be looking to continue his mini resurgence – aka playing in two games back to back – with more lineout dominance this week.

Huw Jones, who was one of the few attacking sparks in the uninspiring fixture last weekend continues at full back outside of Nick Grigg. Just think, if only Glasgow had any other options at outside centre?

Mind you, the Warriors other fullback, Glenn Bryce, is off to LA to play Major League Rugby (in the same team as Adam Ashe and DTH) so Glasgow’s search for a replacement to (the irreplaceable) Stuart Hogg, who left in 2019, continues.

Edinburgh look like they have too much up front if it does deteriorate into another game of endless scrums and box-kicking, so Glasgow’s best route to success may be to try and find some inspiration out wide in the manner of their golden years.

One thing that may give the home side some comfort is the absence of both Duhan Van Der Merwe (knee injury) and Darcy Graham (personal reasons), but which means we’re once again relying on an out of position Jones or one of the youngsters for something that passes as entertainment.

Glasgow Warriors: Huw Jones, Lee Jones, Nick Grigg, Robbie Fergusson, Rufus McLean, Ross Thompson, Ali Price; Oli Kebble, George Turner, Zander Fagerson, Richie Gray, Scott Cummings, Ryan Wilson (CAPT), Tom Gordon, Matt Fagerson.
Replacements: Johnny Matthews, Aki Seiuli, Enrique Pieretto, Lewis Bean, TJ Ioane, Jamie Dobie, Brandon Thomson, Glenn Bryce.

Glasgow unavailable for selection: Alex Allan, Fraser Brown, Rob Harley, Adam Hastings, George Horne, Pete Horne, Sam Johnson, Sean Kennedy, Kiran McDonald, Niko Matawalu, Leone Nakarawa, Tommy Seymour, Kyle Steyn

Edinburgh: Blair Kinghorn, Eroni Sau, Mark Bennett, Chris Dean, Jack Blain, Jaco van der Walt, Nic Groom, Rory Sutherland, Stuart McInally (CO-CAPT), Simon Berghan, Andrew Davidson, Grant Gilchrist (CO-CAPT), Jamie Ritchie, Hamish Watson, Viliame Mata.
Replacements: David Cherry, Pierre Schoeman, WP Nel, Jamie Hodgson, Magnus Bradbury, Henry Pyrgos, Nathan Chamberlain, James Johnstone.

UPDATE: This game was cancelled due to a frozen pitch.

19 Responses

    1. What is the alternative. There is no fullback if they select Jones at 13. Shaking my head in despair for Huw Jones !

      1. Hasn’t Stafford Mac do well dabbled at Fb?

        In fact, what has happened to him he was cracking when he first appeared and I thought we’d see more of him by now.

        Should be a future Scotland centre pairing with Hutchison IMO

      2. I agree with you, in fact MacDowall was my initial thoughts even as a centre just now. I thought he might be injured, If he is not injured , where is he, why not! I have not seen this guy play a bad game and off the field he attends stakeholder events for the Warriors and stands out like a beacon.

      3. I read it somewhere that Wilson said that McDowell has been injured, he’s back but not up to match sharpness yet according to Wilson, so misses out for now, should be back soon.

  1. I agree about MacDowall. And what about Paddy Kelly. We need to give guys like them runs in the first team.

    1. Couldn’t agree more, we know what Grigg can (and can’t) offer in the 13 jersey, let’s see what others can do. The old heads haven’t been providing the results so far this season so we might as well give the youth a chance and see if it improves the form any.

      1. Well we have Maclean starting his first pro-game tonight, Thompson will be making his first start at 10 and Ferguson who only has a handful of caps.

        It’s a very green backline already.

  2. What about flinging young Ollie Smith in at 15 , even off the bench ? Showed well in the U20’s in the winter , even off the bench give him 10 , 15, 20 mins to start with.

      1. Probably a fair amount of in house games. This season is probably a good time to blood all their youngsters (1-2 at a time per game) to see who can step up next season on a cheaper contract than signing overseas.

      2. Do you know that for sure , or did you just assume that they have been playing in house. Full Contact ? As you can tell, I am not buying that.

      3. So if the young lads are not playing games , what are they doing , just fitness work ?
        Surely not – if we don’t blood them and give them experience , we can’t complain that Munster et al’s academies are a conveyor belt of talent , when we don’t turn on the conveyor.

  3. The tables do not have any opinions they just say it how it is . Albeit both our sides have games in hand they are sitting bottom and second bottom. Despair not , think on the bringht side, things can only get better.

    1. “Do not despair “ they said, “things could be worse “.
      So they did not despair.
      And things got worse !

  4. The tables don’t look good but let’s not forget we have to play both Italian sides so things could look slightly better once (if!) those games take place. That said, the way both sides are playing there’s no guarantee of points there.

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