Fast forward twelve months, and the tough-tackling back-rower has burnished his reputation as one of the brightest young prospects in Scottish rugby after a barnstorming end to the 2024\/25 campaign.<\/p>\n
A professional debut off the bench away to the Dragons was followed by a brace of eye-catching displays for Glasgow Warriors A against Benetton and Black Lion, earning Duncan a first senior start in the club\u2019s final match of the regular season and a place on the bench for both of Glasgow\u2019s BKT United Rugby Championship playoff encounters.<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old is refusing to get carried away, though, instead focusing on taking the next step in 2025\/26.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been such an enjoyable year,\u201d Duncan reflected as he spoke to glasgowwarriors.org.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve definitely learned a lot from the coaches and from the rest of the boys here \u2013 there\u2019s been a lot of graft put in, and it\u2019s definitely been paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Any hopes of being eased into pre-season training have swiftly been dispelled thanks to a gruelling start to block one, yet it\u2019s an environment for which Duncan and company have been well prepared \u2013 even during their well-earned downtime.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI managed to get away on holiday for a bit, but I was definitely making sure I was keeping on top of everything ready to come back in and hit the ground running,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven then, though, the body\u2019s definitely a bit tired after the first few days of pre-season! The lungs aren\u2019t too bad, but the coaches and S&C team have been testing our mental side so far, that\u2019s for sure. It\u2019s been good to come back in and crack on with it together.\u201d<\/p>\n
With those that toured with Scotland \u2013 in addition to the British & Irish Lions \u2013 during the summer to be gradually re-integrated into the Scotstoun environment over the coming weeks, it\u2019s a youthful group that are putting in the hard yards in the early phase of pre-season for Franco Smith\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a mix that Duncan is relishing, as the build-up to the start of the new campaign begins in earnest.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a good vibe in the group,\u201d said the back-rower.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone\u2019s bringing a lot of energy, pushing each other on, and making sure we all drive each other\u2019s standards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good group of bodies in the building right now, and we\u2019re looking forward to welcoming the rest of our boys back from the summer tours for Scotland and the Lions over the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fast forward twelve months, and the tough-tackling back-rower has burnished his reputation as one of the brightest young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,918,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-370771","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-glasgow","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370771","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=370771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}