MIKE Blair and Rory Clegg will make their first starts for Glasgow against Connacht tonight, at scrum-half and stand-off respectively, as the PRO12 champions bid to put the disappointment of last week’s defeat by the Scarlets behind them.
Winger Junior Bulumakua, who scored tries in the warm-up games against Clermont and Canada, makes his competitive debut against the Irish province, replacing the injured Rory Hughes. In the pack, Kieran Low makes his first start at lock.
“Mike's got a lot of experience and did well when he came on [last week],” Gregor Townsend, the Glasgow coach, said yesterday. “He missed the Clermont game with injury. Grayson [Hart] has played well, but Mike deserves a start. He and Rory have played at Newcastle together and they’ve shown what they can do from the Canada game into last week.”
A lot of players failed to show what they can do in last week’s opening league fixture, and Townsend has demanded that they put in a far better showing this time. With 20 players having been called up on World Cup duty, the Warriors have the most absentees of any PRO12 side, but the coach does not believe that the unfamiliarity of the line-up that played last week is any excuse for their shortcomings.
“I thought we were the second-best team in that first half,” he said. “Things didn't go our way, sometimes through our mistakes. We were unlucky with the bounce of the ball. We just seemed to be playing a lot of rugby in our half which with the wind behind us shouldn't have been the case. Not the standards we require or what we've seen in training and the previous games.
“This group are capable of more and they showed that in the second half. We dominated the game with 90 per cent possession. Scarlets gave away 18 penalties and had those three yellow cards, which shows the pressure we were putting them under. I was very pleased with how we responded.”
Townsend hopes that Taqele Naiyaravoro, the newly-capped Wallabies winger, will soon have his visa and be able to join up with the squad. “We’re still waiting for the visa process to be started. He's now back in Australia after being out in the States with the Australia squad, but he's come back early to speed up the visa process now he’s no longer with the squad.
“These things can take two or three weeks. I'm hoping for less. We have a game in three weeks against Munster and it would be great news if we could have him for that. Then the next game is a fortnight after, so if not Munster then we'd like to think he'd be here for that one.”
Glasgow Warriors (v Connacht at Scotstoun, tonight, 7.35pm): G Bryce; J Bulumakau, P Murchie, F Lyle, L Jones; R Clegg, M Blair; A Allan, P MacArthur, M Cusack, S Cummings, K Low, R Harley, C Fusaro, A Ashe. Substitutes: K Bryce, J Yanuyanutawa, Z Fagerson, J Eddie, T Holmes, H Blake, G Hart, S Wight.
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