Franco Smith keeping cards close to his chest as injured Glasgow quartet sit out Scarlets semi-final dress rehearsal

Glasgow head coach Franco Smith insists that there is method to his selection madness after he once again made wholesale changes to his starting fifteen for tonight’s home clash against the Scarlets.

Warriors head coach Franco Smith has made 10 changes to his Glasgow side but insists it is all part of the plan. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

On this occasion there is 10 new faces in the Warriors line-up and one positional alteration from the team he sent out against the Lions in last weekend’s Challenge Cup quarter-final.

Smith’s side are hunting a win which will book them a home draw in the URC play-offs, and this match will also be an opportunity to lay down a marker ahead of facing the same Welsh opponents in the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup in a fortnight’s time.

“I’ve been seeing some people writing that we’re on a merry-go-round with selection – but that’s not really what it is,” stressed the South African coach. “There’s a plan behind everything and the way we have gone about our business this year.

“I think most of this team played when we beat Munster a few weeks ago away from home, so this is not about just picking randomly. We need to keep the freshness in the team, because it’s late in the season and we know that a lot of rugby has been played.

“We want to be prepared for every final that might be ahead of us, and that means making sure we have the whole squad ready to go if called upon.”

Smith didn’t have any choice about leaving out four leading Scotland internationals who are all injured this week, but he expects George Horne, George Turner, Jack Dempsey and Sione Tuipulotu to be back in contention in time for the Scarlets re-match.

“They’ve all got little niggles that come through the season, but hopefully in a couple of weeks we can freshen them up and help them recover,” he explained. “It’s nothing overly serious, but obviously I want to try and keep my cards closer and closer to my chest.

“Everybody outside of Glasgow is becoming more and more interested in us now and what team we can put out.”

"The players we put out on the field must do a job,” he added. “We don’t take a risk. We give responsibility to the team.

“You can just imagine how much Stafford McDowall and Sam Johnson want to contribute this week. The same with Sione Vailanu, Fraser Brown, and Ali Price as well. There’s still places up for grabs for the knock-out stage of the season.

“In this game, we need to play to our strengths. I’ve prepared for many derbies and big games in my life, when you know you’re going to play against the same team twice, and there’s ways to manage it, so nothing will come as a surprise for us over these next couple of weeks.

“We still have this week and next week to get better at what we do so that the product we roll out in the finals are a well-rehearsed and well-prepared plan.

“We didn’t play as well as we wanted last week against the Lions, and when we watched it back we could see that it was about not sticking to our processes under pressure, so they were easily fixable things, and another arrow in our quiver to take into the next high-pressure match.

“And our objectives go beyond this season, they go into next season as well, and they are to keep moving in the direction we want to head in because we are still well off where we want to go.”

Glasgow (v Scarlets at Scotstoun Stadium on Friday night @ 7.35pm): H Jones K Steyn©, S McDowall, S Johnson, C Forbes; T Jordan, A Price; J Bhatti, J Matthews, Z Fagerson, L Bean, J du Preez, R Wilson, M Fagerson, S Vailanu. Substitutes: F Brown, N McBeth. S Berghan, R Gray, S Cummings, R Darge, J Dobie, D Miotti.

Scarlets: T Rogers; S Evans, I Nicholas, E James, R Conbeer; D Jones, K Hardy; W Jones, S Evans, S Wainwright, M Jones, V Fifita, W Shenton, J Macleod©, C Tuipulotu. Substitutes: D Hughes, S Thomas, J Sebastian, A Shingler, I Rees, D Blacker, R Patchell, J Roberts