The Australian-born forward, however, has benefited from some extended rest and will now return for Glasgow in tomorrow night\u2019s pre-season friendly against Northampton Saints.<\/p>\n
Smith said: \u201cI\u2019m obviously excited for him. He\u2019s recovered and he\u2019s worked so hard to get physically in good condition to be able to play again. I can see the excitement in him as well, so looking forward to having him back. But we\u2019re also realistic. It\u2019s going to take a bit of time for him to get in form, so the ideal place to start is Friday night.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It has been tough for him] from a mental perspective, I think he wants to contribute and he wanted to contribute at the back end of last season. Definitely, he was really frustrated to not be able to do that.\u00a0But then again, with that injury, he\u2019s had surgery on his leg before in that region, in his hamstring area, so we didn\u2019t want to take any risks to make the wrong call there. We had to bite the bullet, as he did. Now a lot of time has passed and I think he\u2019s now ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glasgow\u2019s prop crisis also seems to be easing. Nathan McBeth<\/strong> has recovered from an injury sustained in training to start against Saints, with Jamie Bhatti<\/strong> deemed fit enough for the bench. Fin Richardson<\/strong> starts again at tighthead, his position covered by Sam Talakai.<\/strong><\/p>\n Smith added: \u201cIn an ideal world, we would have liked to have waited another week with [Bhatti], but he\u2019s presented really well and he\u2019s trained well this week as the loading went on. So I think he\u2019ll play some part. Obviously it will be a [beginning] for him tomorrow night, but it\u2019s good to use this game to bring him back rather than the start of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n Dan Lancaster<\/strong> makes his first start at No.10 and Smith has been as impressed by his character as much as his talent.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of my interests sat there. The fact that he\u2019s resilient and he\u2019s not faced by things he can\u2019t control, his ability to adapt, I thought was what stood out. Not just his playing ability. Having children playing this game at a professional level, it brings a lot of stress to the household. The way he\u2019s managed and dealt with that and continued to be selected and perform on the other side of it is a compliment to the person. That is part of the reason we got him in here.\u201d<\/p>\n Like the departed Tom Jordan,<\/strong> Lancaster can also play at 12 but Smith doesn\u2019t want to make comparisons.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody\u2019s got their own strengths and should bring their own to the party. I don\u2019t like to compare people. I don\u2019t want him to be like somebody. I don\u2019t want that to be considered. I think he must bring his own niche to the game. He will fill some of the space that Tom filled for us over the last three years. Hopefully he can grow in that role.<\/p>\n \u201cTom is a good example of a youngster that came to the club a little bit unknown, no real opportunity and then grew with us. I hope this is similar for him. I hope he grows with the team to become the best version of himself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian-born forward, however, has benefited from some extended rest and will now return for Glasgow in tomorrow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[748,85185,9436,918,8979,4884,135442,142992,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-417285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-divi","10":"tag-franco-smith","11":"tag-glasgow","12":"tag-glasgow-warriors","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-jack-dempsey","15":"tag-jamie-bhatti","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115188876150254446","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417285","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=417285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}