From wet and windy Scotstoun on Friday night to sunny Ellis Park in Johannesburg next Saturday, Glasgow Warriors will experience the two extremes of a cross-hemisphere league competition inside the space of eight days this week, and their approach to dealing with that is going to be to conduct an SAS-style hit-and-run mission.
So, while the big focus in Scottish rugby will be on Paris next Sunday as Gregor Townsend’s national team look to make it three from three in the Six Nations, Franco Smith’s boys are hoping to slip under the radar by arriving in Johannesburg late and returning home as soon as possible after their match.
“We train hard Monday and Tuesday every week – they are never easy – so it is nice that we’ll prep for the game at home, before flying out to South Africa on Tuesday night,” explained stand-off Duncan Weir.
“When we get out to South Africa it will be about recovery and acclimatising for a few days, then we’ll play the match and fly straight back Saturday night. We’re not there for a holiday – we’re there to get a job done.”
It is a hugely important fixture for Warriors, who will be looking to extend their unbeaten run in all competitions to 11 matches. Their gritty 17-11 victory over Ulster on Friday lifted them to fourth in the URC table, and they could leap ahead of the Norther Irishmen – who are also in action next weekend away to Cell C Sharks – into third if results go their way on Saturday.
But the timing of this re-arranged URC fixture could not be any more awkward given that it will leave Warriors without around a dozen players who will be involved with the Scotland squad, while the Lions should be close to full strength.
Glasgow’s international absentees are likely to include seven players who were released to play a key role in Friday night’s win.
Jack Dempsey scored the decisive second try for the home side as the icing on the cake of a man-of-the-match performance, centre and captain Stafford McDowall was solid both sides of the ball in a match which was not suited to outside-back play, with Ollie Smith equally reliable on the wing.
Meanwhile, props Jamie Bhatti and Simon Berghan, hooker Fraser Brown – who scored the team’s third and final try – and scrum-half Ali Price all brought real impetus off the bench.
Then, of course, the likes of Zander Fagerson, George Turner, Richie Gray, George Horne, Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones and Kyle Steyn were all wrapped in cotton wool for the Ulster match and will not be around next weekend either.
However, Weir insisted that the absence of so many key men will not dent the confidence which has built up in recent months.
“This year we’ve made changes in our squad throughout the campaign and the results have kept coming with guys stepping up to snatch the opportunity when it has come their way,” he said. “So, it doesn’t really worry me that these boys won’t be around.
“I think we’re in a good place and everyone is singing off the same hymn sheet in terms of our structures and what we want to do on the field.
“Obviously, it is a loss in personnel, but there are 55 senior players in the squad, plus academy boys who are hungry to go and grab their chance when it comes.”
Speaking about Friday’s win, Weir said: “It was a tight old game with two good sides going at it. The weather tied down the game plans of both sides, and our forwards delivered a really great platform from scrum and maul as they have done all this year, which helped us grind out the result.
“So, credit to the boys up front, it was a good performance by them – and I thought in the second half we definitely did a lot better at playing the right areas of the pitch than we did in the first half.
“It will be a different weather experience out in South Africa, but hopefully we are just as prepared to do that hard stuff like we did tonight as well as the expansive stuff we’ve shown in previous games this season.”
One player who could come in to bolster Warriors is flanker Rory Darge, who is back in full training after his ankle injury in September.
