What matters most, of course, is how all of that was viewed and reviewed in-house. And the word out of the Glasgow camp today from their temporary West of Scotland RFC base is that there are no plans to do anything dramatically different in the season ahead. A stronger mindset to cope with the pressures of knockout rugby is one definite work-on but, beyond that, there is a belief there is no need to knock down the building blocks carefully put in place over the last few years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI suppose the first thing is that there\u2019s a bit of reinforcement there for everyone,\u201d said assistant coach Scott Forrest.<\/strong> \u201cA lot of our big rocks we talk about \u2014 that\u2019s the language we use in attack and defence, set-piece \u2014 is some of the best in the URC and Europe. Actually, some of the stats we\u2019re looking at, it\u2019s the best in world rugby. So, the core of what we do, especially attack and defence, we\u2019re not going to change. I feel we\u2019ve got an identity on both sides of the ball.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, where we fell down was two knockout games, one against Toulon in Europe. And then obviously the Bulls, where, whether it\u2019s external pressures that have an impact on you and being able to perform at your best when it really counts. There\u2019s probably been some similarities with Scotland over the last 12 months and they\u2019ve had a really positive summer. So, our big rocks aren\u2019t going to change. Ultimately, we just need to look at those little one-percenters about what gets us over the line in those knockout pressure matches.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course, the other vital factor is that head coach Franco Smith and his coaching staff are having to try to reproduce that level of consistent success with ever fewer resources. Six influential players have moved on this summer \u2013 Huw Jones, Johnny Matthews, Jack Dempsey, Jamie Bhatti, Sione Vailanu <\/strong>and Adam Hastings<\/strong> \u2013 to be replaced with just three senior incomers. And while Australian versatility back Bayley Kuenzle<\/strong> has already settled in well, former Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie<\/strong> is still nursing an injury and fellow back-rower Ruwald van der Merwe<\/strong> is yet to arrive in Scotland.<\/p>\n Forrest reveals that will likely be the extent of the shopping done this summer and, while that won\u2019t settle the nerves of the more anxious members of Warrior Nation, he does point to a similar scenario last summer when Tom Jordan, Sebastian Cancelliere <\/strong>and Henco Venter<\/strong> all left and performances didn\u2019t fall off a cliff.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cIn terms of bringing players in, the way the squad is just now is probably how it\u2019s going to look. Obviously, the things that might change are if we pick up long-term injuries in certain positions that put us under stress. And I would say there were probably similar conversations happening last year [around a perceived lack of recruitment] when the likes of Seba Cancelliere left, Henco left and TJ left.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were probably similar things said about these guys leaving and not being replaced by a similar quality. And, while we\u2019ve not won a trophy, statistically we won more matches last season than we\u2019ve ever done in the past and finished top of the URC regular season.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, we\u2019re looking at the positives. Yes, we\u2019ve lost some quality internationals but we\u2019re very confident in terms of the younger players that we\u2019ve got in our group. Some of them are young academy players that have been promoted and some of them are actually young international players. And this is their opportunity to go and step up, like we\u2019ve just seen with the likes of Gregor Hiddleston <\/strong>and Seb Stephen<\/strong> [with Scotland] in the summer. I think we\u2019re still pretty confident that the blend that we\u2019ve got in the squad and the competition we\u2019ve got for places will put us in a pretty good position this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Forrest has also been encouraged by Kuenzle\u2019s start to life in Glasgow as well as by some of the new recruits to the senior academy.<\/p>\n \u201cBayley has been excellent on and off the pitch,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s a good time for a new player like that to come in because the group\u2019s a little bit smaller when the internationals aren\u2019t here. And he\u2019s obviously played at a high level in Super Rugby. Jamie is still coming off the back of an ankle injury so hopefully we\u2019ll see him in one of these pre-season games. He\u2019s not been in training yet, but he\u2019s not far away. Everything\u2019s on track with him.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then even a couple of the young boys like Guy Rogers,<\/strong> who\u2019s come into the academy. I know him from the under-20s a couple of years ago. He\u2019s been in Harlequins\u2019 academy and is someone that\u2019s come in and looked really good so far in pre-season as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What matters most, of course, is how all of that was viewed and reviewed in-house. And the word…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,85185,918,8979,4884,712,135443,16,15],"class_list":["post-1156349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-glasgow","tag-britain","tag-divi","tag-glasgow","tag-glasgow-warriors","tag-great-britain","tag-scotland","tag-scott-forrest","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117118765006991000","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1156349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1156349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1156349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1156349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1156349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}