‘One game’ and Glasgow’s Zander Fagerson will be ready for Scotland

Zander Fagerson is in top physical condition after recovering from his broken ankle. Picture: SNS/SRU

Rennie says Fagerson is in top physical condition and believes the 23-year-old has the ability to blow away the cobwebs of five months on the sidelines in only one game at club level before returning to the international fold.

“He’s ready to go, he’s worked really hard and got good size,” said Rennie, pictured. “There is no doubt he will be a tad rusty, but I thought he was outstanding for us in the first three weeks of the season. It has been disappointing not to have him, and disappointing for him not to be playing, but he is ready to go, and while we might only have him for a week we are very excited to have him on the field.

“He’s a real point of difference from a tighthead point of view because he is a big man, he has a very good skill-set, and he’s aggressive defensively, at clean-out and when carrying. For a young man he is a pretty competitive tighthead already, so we are really rapt to have him back.”

Rennie says he has not spoken directly to Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend about the prospect of Fagerson jumping straight back in at the deep end with Scotland, but he is pretty sure that his long-term friend and confidante will be paying close attention to what goes down in Cardiff tonight.

“It is just an assumption. At the end of the day it is Gregor’s decision obviously, but with WP Nel injured it is good timing,” he said.

Warriors are also bolstered for their trip to Cardiff by the return from injury of hooker George Turner, who has been out since mid-December with an ankle injury.

“He’s also looking really good,” said Rennie. “He’s a hell of an athlete, carrying or without the ball. While we’ve lost a few recently, we’ve got back a couple of important players with George and Zander.”

Meanwhile, there is a debut for South African-born Kyle Steyn on the wing, due to DTH van der Merwe (shoulder), Niko Matawalu (head) and Lee Jones (knee) all being unavailable due to injury. The 25-year-old, who has a Scottish-born mother, is currently a member of the national 7s squad but will transfer across to the Glasgow Warriors payroll during the summer.

Fraser Brown, Jonny Gray, Sam Johnson and Tommy Seymour have not been released back by Scotland for this game, but a number of players who have been less active during the Six Nations campaign so far have been offered a chance to get some game time, with Ali Price at scrum-half and Pete Horne selected ahead of Adam Hastings at stand-off.

“We wanted to give Pete a crack,” said Rennie. “He has had about four starts for us at ten this year and generally played really well… maybe not so well against Kings but was excellent against Munster.

“We would have played him there against Cardiff [in the Champions Cup] last month if he had not been injured, and we were reasonably happy with the way Adam went against Saracens in his last hit-out for us, so it is about making that position as competitive as it can be.

“Sometimes it is just about getting your best players on the field. Stafford McDowall has done really well at inside centre and can get better and better, so Peter’s versatility allows us to start him at 10 and maybe move him to 12 later in the game.”

Due to a very definite dip in form over Christmas and into January, Warriors’ lead in Conference A evaporated and they are now seven points behind Munster – but Rennie insisted that he is fairly comfortable with how the season is shaping up.

“We don’t think it is going to be a bad thing that we are going to have to scrape and fight and be at our best,” he explained. “I guess we feel that at this stage last year there wasn’t the same edge and the same desperation. We struggled to get continuity because there wasn’t a lot of games – we weren’t in Europe and we had already qualified for the play-offs – so we think we’re in a better spot now than we were then.”