Lineen rules out a return for Evans

GLASGOW COACH Sean Lineen is feeling a tad frustrated. He has cobbled together a very decent squad of players on a shoestring budget who are mixing it with the big boys at the interesting end of the Magners League. Now, with the end of the season within sight, he admits that Glasgow are losing players over the summer that he would rather keep and he runs through the list.

"Tim Barker is going back to Ulster, Dan Parks (to Cardiff], Mark McMillan (to Bath] is a loss, Kelly Brown (to Saracens], Dan Turner, who is going to Japan, and probably Thom Evans."

Thom Evans probably won't play rugby next year or any other year for that matter. Lineen was just saying out loud what everyone else in and around the Scottish pro teams has been saying in private for the last few months. Following the serious spinal injury he sustained playing against Wales in Cardiff in February the Scotland winger is unlikely to play rugby again, which begs the question why he said the opposite in a recent interview.

It may have been that he expressed his hopes rather than his expectations or perhaps Evans simply did not want to pre-empt any official statement on the matter or steal the back page headlines while his team are still challenging for the Magners title.

If Evans does retire then he will walk away with the heartfelt sympathies of everyone in Scottish rugby. To lose one's career to serious injury at the age of 25 must be desperately difficult to contend with but at least Evans has a multitude of interests outside of rugby to fall back on: sprinting, golfing, singing and perhaps even a modelling career. We wish him well whatever the outcome.

One thing is certain, Thom won't be lining up alongside brother Max in the final round of Magners matches next weekend when Glasgow face the Scarlets in search of a bonus point win.

If the Warriors win in Llanelli on Friday and the Ospreys lose to the Dragons then Lineen's side would leapfrog the all-star Welsh club into second place. Should Glasgow snatch a four-try win bonus, something that they have managed only once this season, they might jump into second place if the Ospreys beat the Dragons without a bonus. In that scenario the second place slot would be determined on points differential and, as things stand, Glasgow have a lead of ten over the Ospreys. Take your calculator along to the Ospreys/Dragons match, whenever and wherever the authorities finally decide to hold it.

The Welsh outfit panned the Magners League last week for the lack of foresight in delaying the announcement of their final match schedule which depends upon whether or not Swansea City FC make the Championship play-offs. If they are successful then the footballers will need the Liberty Stadium on Saturday, 8 May, so preventing the Ospreys from playing until Sunday, by which time the Welsh outfit will know exactly what they have to do since Glasgow play on Friday evening. Just when the league is taking several large steps forward the Magners makes a pratfall. At least the play-offs have been an outstanding success, as Lineen acknowledges.

"These play-offs are great," he said with boundless enthusiasm. "We can't take our foot off the gas now and the Scarlets can play a bit if you let them. We need to win the game first but everyone knows that we won't get a home semi-final without that bonus point so we'll need to go for it."

According to Lineen, Glasgow have gone some way to shedding their "inconsistent" tag with a series of wins. "We are definitely more competitive as a team, with a harder edge, who have discovered that winning is a lot more fun than losing although it's a lot more difficult, too. We have our problems, we simply don't have the budget to keep everyone, but there are no excuses in professional sport and we have to win. It's a tough game."

By way of contrast, Edinburgh have leaked 12 tries in the last two matches but the capital side still aren't entirely out of it. Should the Blues beat Munster with neither side winning a bonus point and Edinburgh grab a winning bonus against Leinster in Dublin on Sunday then Rob Moffat's team would finish fourth on 45 points, one more than the Blues and Munster. It isn't likely and nor is Connacht's chance of Heineken Cup rugby next season.

The league's bottom side have an outside chance of claiming Ireland's third Heineken Cup place by beating Ulster on the final weekend but they will need to win by a clear 131 points to do so.