Glasgow in line to claim £15,000 for aborted trip

GLASGOW are expected to receive around £15,000 in compensation for their aborted trip to Ireland last week, but it seems likely their match with Leinster will be rearranged for a week when their internationalists may not be available.

The Celtic League's director, David Jordan, confirmed the league has paid out to travelling clubs for postponed fixtures in the past and that will occur again with Glasgow after their match against Leinster at the weekend fell victim to the cold weather.

The Scottish pro team is still awaiting news of what compensation they may be due from the airlines and travel firms, but having had to stay in Dublin on Thursday and Friday nights and endured a farcical journey home – they twice sat on planes only for them to be cancelled and disembarked, then took a bus to Larne, a ferry to Stranraer and a bus to Glasgow, arriving back in the city early on Sunday morning – the total bill could be heading towards 15,000.

That is now an issue for Kenny Baillie, Glasgow's new chief executive, to deal with, but Glasgow coach Sean Lineen remains concerned about when the match, a crucial fixture in Glasgow's bid to qualify for the Magners League play-offs, will now be played.

Leinster now have two matches outstanding, having had the previous week's game with Connacht called off, and that game is likely to be played before Glasgow's. Jordan stated the Celtic League will wait until after the next two weeks of Heineken Cup rugby are played before making a decision on a new date. If Leinster and Glasgow both fail to qualify for the knockout stages in either the Heineken Cup or Amlin Challenge Cup then the quarter-final date for those competitions – 8/9/10 April – would become a possibility.

Leinster, however, are odds-on to qualify for the last eight as they currently top their pool, which leaves only international weekends. That includes the last weekend in January when all the internationalists are in camp in preparation for the start of the RBS Six Nations Championship, but if the teams agree to playing that weekend – Ireland A are also playing England Saxons in Bath that Sunday – the Leinster v Connacht game is likely to be given preference.

Jordan stated: "We are looking at possible dates now and once we know what the scenario is with European qualification we will make a decision. We want Leinster and Glasgow to agree to a date and, obviously, they will want to field their strongest teams, but there are no weekends outside the international window apart from the European semi-finals and final weekends.

"Leinster have their game with Connacht to arrange first, which may be the last weekend of this month. It's not easy, but I would guess that Glasgow and Leinster will have a similar number of players involved with their national squads."

Lineen agreed with the decision to call the game off, but was highly critical of the quality of pitch covers and heaters used to try and keep the pitch from becoming frozen on Thursday night. Ireland's climate is such that the only ground to have undersoil heating is Croke Park, so when temperatures plunged to minus 5C on Thursday there was no hope for Dublin's RDS Showground pitch.

Lineen believes that was inevitable and a decision should have been taken before Glasgow flew on Thursday, but the plight of a family of supporters from Campbelltown put his and the squad's misery into perspective. The family of five returned from a holiday abroad to catch a flight from London to Dublin, only to find it delayed. They ended up flying north to Manchester and on to Prestwick, from there south to Shannon and then east to Dublin... and the game was off, of course. They took the same route home as the Glasgow squad via Belfast and Larne and were offered a trip from Stranraer to Glasgow in the team bus, before having to drive to Campbelltown.

"You really feel for them," said Lineen yesterday. "It was a nightmare for us but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger I always say and as professional sportsmen we just get on with it.

"But, what's frustrating particularly for our supporters is that there was no way the game was ever going to go on – the pitch was rock hard, and what they had in place to deal with the temperatures was nowhere near enough to make the pitch playable. That's frustrating."

Leinster's worries have now moved on to this weekend's game with Brive in the Heineken Cup on Saturday night, but the good news for Glasgow supporters, particularly those who travelled to Dublin, is that Glasgow's Heineken Cup match with the Dragons on Friday is virtually certain to be on.

The Firhill pitch has had the undersoil heating on continuously and after playing at the weekend Partick Thistle were back on the pitch training yesterday with no problems reported with the surface.

"We're looking forward now to that," added Lineen.

"We know we have a good record and a great support at Firhill and there is still a lot to play for in Europe.

"We were disappointed with our last outing at Gloucester, but the guys bounced back from that well in the 1872 Cup and now we have to show in our last two pool games that we can be better than that still."