GIVEN the punishing intensity of matches in the Six Nations Championship, it would be no surprise if many players felt in need of a break at the end of it. Instead, at least as far as Scotland’s Glasgow Warriors contingent are concerned, a change is as good as a rest, and for most of them that should mean an immediate return to PRO12 action at home to Connacht tomorrow.
Warriors head coach Gregor Townsend will name his team for that match today, and Tommy Seymour for one cannot wait to turn out for the club again. After ending the Six Nations on a high with a try in the 29-0 win over Italy, the winger has felt inspired by his return to the day job at Scotstoun, and is looking forward to resuming the fight to get into the play-off places in the league.
“It’s a long tournament - it’s also made longer for a reason as well, in order to try and have those couple of rest weeks in between to allow the players to prepare bodies and for squads to keep training numbers as high as possible,” Seymour said of the Six Nations. “There’s a lot of energy that goes into international rugby, and it’s of such a high intensity that your body definitely goes through it.
“But being able to come back here in Glasgow, back in your home club, I think that does give you a reboot of energy. Seeing old faces you might not have seen for a while and being back in a day-to-day environment you’re very comfortable with is always great. So although the body certainly does feel it, everyone’s keen to get back and get involved again with the club.”
Given the improvements made by Scotland in the Championship this season, it comes as no surprise that Seymour is confident they can build on their success in the years to come, and that Glasgow will also benefit when the national team’s coaches move from Murrayfield to Scotstoun this summer. The victory against Italy was Vern Cotter’s last as head coach of Scotland, and he will be replaced by Townsend in time for the summer tour to Australia. At the same time, Cotter’s assistants Jason O’Halloran and Jonathan Humphreys will join new Warriors coach Dave Rennie. Seymour is sure they have lots more to offer - and so, he explained, was Cotter when he spoke to the squad after the Italy game.
“As Vern was keen to point out and I think all the players believe, it’s not the end of something, it’s very much the beginning,” Seymour said. “We’ll be looking to continue that work.
“Gregor has his own ideas, but he’ll be looking to build on the foundations that Vern has instilled in the squad. Hopefully we can keep achieving things and push further up the ranks.
“And the flipside of that is with a couple of the Scotland coaches coming here, we know them well, and they’ll get a chance to be with us more day to day. They’ll have the chance to implement things that they weren’t able to at international level with the shorter time scales. It will be interesting to develop ideas with them that we might not have seen before.
“We still have a lot we can achieve. The new appointments both at Scotland and here are well deserved, and they’ll definitely improve on what’s already there.”
Glasgow need to win tomorrow to keep their play-off hopes alive, and can expect a tougher fight than they got in Ireland on the first weekend of the season, when they beat Connacht 41-5. The champions have recovered from a slow start to the season, and are now seven points behind the Warriors with a game in hand.
“Last time we played them was the first game of the season and that was vital for us, because it was getting off on the front foot, and because of the heartache we felt in the double header there last year,” Seymour continued, referring to his team’s loss in in the final game of the regular season and then in the semi-final.
“Connacht has been some massive fixtures for us in the last few years and I don’t think this one will be very different. We can’t afford to make many more mistakes in the league, and they’ll be keen to get back at us from the start of the year.
“It’ll be a huge fixture. Hopefully the weather stands strong and we can have a good game of rugby.”
With five games to go before the play-offs, Glasgow are sixth, 11 points behind fourth-placed Ulster and seven behind Scarlets in fifth. After tomorrow they have away games at Munster and Leinster, both of whom are in the top three along with Scarlets, and home matches against Zebre and Edinburgh.
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