Glasgow’s Al Kellock to make 1872 Cup return

Kellock got his hands on the 1872 Cup back in April. Picture: SNS

The skipper will make his 147th appearance for the club in front of a capacity Scotstoun crowd on Saturday afternoon.

CONNECT WITH THE SCOTSMAN

• Subscribe to our daily newsletter (requires registration) and get the latest news, sport and business headlines delivered to your inbox every morning

• You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Google +

Kelock’s return isn’t the only bit of good news for Warriors’ head coach Gregor Townsend.

In the back-line Stuart Hogg returns to replace Peter Murchie at full-back and fit-again Alex Dunbar comes in for Richie Vernon at outside centre.

Peter Horne continues at inside centre, Duncan Weir replaces Finn Russell at stand-off and Henry Pyrgos starts ahead of Niko Matawalu at scrum-half.

Ryan Grant and Pat MacArthur come in for Gordon Reid and Fraser Brown at loose-head and hooker respectively.

In the second-row Kellock replaces Leone Nakarawa and Tim Swinson comes in for Jonny Gray.

Rob Harley once again moved to the openside, with Ryan Wilson coming in at blindside flanker.

All 6,945 tickets for the game have been sold and supporters have been urged not to travel to the stadium unless they have a ticket.

Townsend said: “It’s encouraging that a number of our players have come back from injury and we have a bigger squad to select from this week.

“This is the game every player wants to play in and there has been a real edge to training.

“It was a really difficult team to select with the second half performance against Munster and the impact the bench made, in addition to a number of players coming back from injury. It’s a case of rewarding those who are in form and finding the right combinations for this weekend’s opponents.

“Al (Kellock) has been working really hard and has been very consistent with his training. He has been heavily involved in preparing for this game and his participation in the ‘A’ fixture on Monday was of real benefit to him to prepare for this match.

“We know we face an extremely tough test against an in-form Edinburgh side, but all the players are really looking forward to this derby match.”

TEAM

15. Stuart Hogg

14. Sean Lamont

13. Alex Dunbar

12. Peter Horne

11. DTH van der Merwe

10. Duncan Weir

9. Henry Pyrgos

1. Ryan Grant

2. Pat MacArthur

3. Euan Murray

4. Tim Swinson

5. Al Kellock (Captain)

6. Ryan Wilson

7. Rob Harley

8. Josh Strauss

Replacements

16. Dougie Hall

17. Alex Allan

18. Jon Welsh

19. Leone Nakarawa

20. Tyrone Holmes

21. Niko Matawalu

22. Richie Vernon

23. Sean Maitland

Not available due to injury: Adam Ashe (neck), Mark Bennett (leg), Kevin Bryce (shin), Rossouw de Klerk (foot), Chris Fusaro (ankle), Lee Jones (ankle), Murray McConnell (leg), Tom Ryder (neck) and Jerry Yanuyanutawa (head).

• Gregor Townsend: 1872 Cup clash hugely anticipated

• Edinburgh can cause 1872 upset, says Tommy Seymour

SCOTSMAN TABLET AND IPHONE APPS

• Download your free 30-day trial for our iPad, Android and Kindle apps

• Keep up to date with all aspects of Scottish life with The Scotsman iPhone app, completely free to download and use