Glasgow Warriors: Rory Darge return and Eli Cavan debut decisions explained ahead of Lions clash

Franco Smith believes than his decision not to rush Rory Darge back into action from the ankle injury he suffered in September will allow the flanker to hit the ground running in this afternoon’s re-arranged URC clash against the Lions in Johannesburg.

And if the 23-year-old produces a performance anywhere near to the levels he consistently managed as the national team’s breakthrough star of last season, then he could push his way into Scotland contention for the final two rounds of the Six Nations against Ireland in two Sundays’ time and Italy six days later.

“Our strategy is that once you are ready to play you are still two weeks away from being selected,” explained Smith. “With all our injured players, we don’t want to rush them back and run the risk of having a recurring injury. Also, our players are very well conditioned at the moment so even if you feel ready, you might be physically behind.

“Rory has spent the last two weeks working really hard on the rugby conditioning side of things and getting himself back into the detail of our team set-up. I think we’ll see it was worthwhile waiting for as long as we did.”

Rory Darge makes his Glasgow Warriors return in South Africa on Saturday. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

Meanwhile, Smith has handed a debut to Eli Cavan – a winger who plays for Ayrshire Bulls in the semi-pro Super6 competition

“We brought Eli in after the end of the Super6 Championship in late October and he’s trained really well with us,” said the coach. “He played for our A team in a training match against Scotland under-20s last month, scoring three tries, and it’s an area of the team that we want to broaden the number of players available to us.

“He might be an unknown to a lot of people but hopefully he can gain an opportunity now to become a full-time professional.”

Scotland prop Allan Dell is also set to make his debut for the club off the bench after recovering from a calf injury he suffered soon after joining the club from London Irish last summer.

“Oli Kebble has also been back fit the last two weeks, and Jamie Bhatti is doing very well with Scotland right now, so there is going to be good competition in that role going forward.”

Glasgow Warriors (v Lions at Emirates Airline Park on Saturday @ 2.15pm UK time): J McKay; C Forbes, S McDowall©, S Johnson, E Cavan; T Jordan, J Dobie; N McBeth, J Matthews, L Sordoni, L Bean, S Cummings, A Miller, R Darge, S Vailanu, J. Substitutes: A Fraser, A Dell, S Berghan, J Du Preez, E Ferrie, T Gordon, S Kennedy, D Weir.

Lions: Q Horn; R Maxwane, M Rass, M Louw©, E van der Merwe; G Lombard, S Nohamba; F Horn, E Tshituka, J Kriel; R Schoeman, R Venter; A Ntlabakanye, P Botha, J Smith. Substitutes: M Brandon, R Rijnsburger, R Dreyer, R Delport, R Straeuli; M van den Berg, R Jonker, A Coetzee.