That was a pilgrimage that tended to have a night out tagged on at the end rather than a late bus home, a smile crossing Craig\u2019s face at the memory. Half the country could claim to have been Warriors fans growing up when they go on to sign for the club but Craig has put in the hard yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing from Castle Douglas, this is the closest professional team to where I was from,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo I grew up supporting Glasgow Warriors and there was always that pull of potentially coming home. And then when the opportunity came (in the summer), it was something I was very excited about.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my favourite players, actually, back in the day was Dan Parks.<\/strong> We used to come up, probably a couple of times with Stafford, to Firhill. I watched a few Friday night tough games, but maybe some thrillers too. Dan was always good at slotting them penalties and drop goals back in the day. I think when you\u2019re a boy, you just like the glory, don\u2019t you? The guys with the winning moments. So, signing here was almost like a full circle moment with being a fan and then going on to become a Glasgow Warrior myself.\u201d<\/p>\n In his very young days, the 28-year-old grew up envisioning those glory moments for himself.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was a mini, I was actually more a centre, believe it or not,\u201d he adds. \u201cI was sort of in the back line for my minis. I liked to just get the ball, try to run round, score tries. But unfortunately, my pace kind of went when I was a bit older and slowly I moved into the forwards.\u201d<\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t turned out too badly for him since, establishing himself at Gloucester and then Scarlets before returning home this summer. There was a certain irony that his first matches in a Warriors shirt would be against Welsh opposition in Dragons and then Ospreys but he confirms he\u2019s settled in well after shaking off a few early niggles.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s going pretty well, but there\u2019s always things we can improve on. But personally, I\u2019m happy to be back playing and excited to see what\u2019s to come. I was quite familiar with a lot of the boys coming up here and like I say, it\u2019s been pretty smooth and everyone in the building has made it quite easy, whether that\u2019s the kit men, physios, obviously Franco has been great. So yes, it\u2019s been good.\u201d<\/p>\n Craig could have been at Glasgow last year. Smith wanted him to replace the Japan-bound Richie Gray<\/strong> but Scarlets held their ground.<\/p>\n \u201cIt got quite far down the line, I\u2019d say. But obviously Scarlets, they were quite keen on keeping me there. And I was playing regularly there. I was keen to try and get to Glasgow, but just the way things were, I ended up staying. And I enjoyed my time at Scarlets. You know, we did all right last year, to be fair. So, I\u2019ve got fond memories there. But at the same time, I was excited to come to Glasgow.\u201d<\/p>\n Gregor Townsend<\/strong> has looked elsewhere for second-row options for Scotland\u2019s forthcoming autumn international series but Craig is happy to settle in at Glasgow first.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just focused on Glasgow and trying to play as well as I can for them and then what will be will be. It\u2019s something that I\u2019m striving towards, obviously, trying to get back involved with Scotland as much as I can. But that all starts with just focusing on trying to do as well as I can for Glasgow and then things take care of themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That was a pilgrimage that tended to have a night out tagged on at the end rather than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7826],"tags":[24936,748,169415,85185,918,8979,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-521042","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-glasgow","8":"tag-alex-craig","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-dan-parks","11":"tag-divi","12":"tag-glasgow","13":"tag-glasgow-warriors","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-scotland","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115421050536608694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521042","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=521042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}