THE argument about the so-called "project players" – foreigners who use the three-year residency rule to qualify for a country that they have no strong ties to – threatens to blow up again after Josh Strauss, the South African No.8 who has won 11 caps for Scotland, admitted he had signed his last contact extension with Glasgow Warriors only to further his international ambitions.
Now that he has fulfilled his dream and played for Scotland, he says he is perfectly happy to move to England, where he has signed to play for the Sale Sharks.
The row arrived in Glasgow in autumn 2012 and never made any secret of the fact that he aimed to qualify for Scotland once he fulfilled the residential criteria. He extended his stay in the summer of 2015 and achieved his cap goal during the 2015 World Cup.
That deal ends this summer. Glasgow Warriors confiremed last week that he would he leaving the club and now Sale Sharks have announced his arrival. "Since coming to the UK I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to play in the Premiership, which is a highly rated competition by players in South Africa," they quoted him as saying.
"I signed for Glasgow and needed to sign for a second term in order to qualify to play for the national side.
"I have really enjoyed my time with the Warriors but I asked my agent to look around in the Premiership for me. He came back with Sale Sharks who have a good name, a good record in the Premiership and looked an attractive proposition."
The reality may be a little more nuanced than Sale have made it look. The word around Glasgow is that he was not offered a third deal, the club reckoning it had enough cover in the the back row and could spend his wage to better effect.
He is currently out of action anyway, having damaged a kidney playing for Scotland in Paris, an injury that has ruled him out of the rest of the RBS Six Nations Championship and could mean he has played his last game for Glasgow.
The chance of Strauss getting a final outing for the Warriors has plunged in recent weeks with the team losing three successive games, two of them against immediate rivals for the final play-off spot – the top three have pulled clear and are jockeying for home advantage.
Mike Blair, the assistant coach at Glasgow Warriors, admits that it is looking increasingly desperate for his side, but refuses to write off their chances yet.
"It is still on but we need something a bit special now," he said. "As a minimum we need to win all our games and probably to pick up some bonus points as well. It is going to be a tough ask but we went on a run the same kind of time last year and won nine on the trot to make the play offs. It is not impossible, but we are making things hard for ourselves.
"So much depends on other results as well. We have worked pretty well. It is just that we have not been quite as clinical as we could have been. The attack stats for Henry [Pyrgos] and Grayson [Hart, the scrum halves in the last two games] show we are getting a lot of ball, and are getting into good positions. It is not a gelling issue as such, just a patience thing and accuracy maybe in the final few phases of being in their 22."
The problem for Glasgow is that while their remaining four home games all look winnable, they probably need to pick up scoring bonus points in all of them while also finding a way to win away at both Munster and Leinster.
Yet, at a time when they need tries as well as wins, the touchdowns have dried up. It is not as though they are not getting into scoring positions – they spent long periods of both their last two games in the opposition 22 without creating much in the way of clear-cut scoring chances. Unless they can change that when the Newport Gwent Dragons arrive at Scotstoun on Saturday the struggles will only deepen.
"We had a lot of possession over the last two games," Blair admitted. "We are getting phases together and putting pressure on, but that pressure is puncuated by a couple of errors on our behalf, whether it is speed to contact or handling errors. It is something we are working hard on and I hope we will out ourselves in a better position on Saturday."
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