Why Glasgow Warriors will treat early rounds of URC as pre-season

Franco Smith admits Glasgow will need to treat the start of their United Rugby Championship defence like an extended pre-season in the interests of player welfare.

Warriors played the URC final against the Bulls in Pretoria on June 22 and then sent 15 players on the Scotland summer tour of North and South America.

Smith fielded a relatively inexperienced line-up in the opening pre-season friendly against Zebre that Glasgow lost 31-0, with a few more familiar faces turning out in Saturday’s home defeat by Connacht.

Glasgow Warriors captain Stafford McDowall, centre, speaks to the squad at full time followng the loss to Connacht at Scotstoun. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

Many of their established internationals, however, have yet to feature including Zander and Matt Fagerson, Kyle Steyn, Huw Jones and Sione Tuipulotu, with Smith believing they need more time on the training pitch.

Glasgow begin their URC defence away to Ulster a week on Saturday and, with a hectic schedule of club and Scotland fixtures to follow before the end of the year, Smith conceded his squad won’t be operating at full strength to begin with.

“Remember, we finished way later than everybody else,” he pointed out. “Most of the team then went on the Scotland tour. The pre-season length is the length that it is but we had the boys coming in sporadically. That is the effect of the previous season. We must all understand that the first two or three games of the league will form part of the pre-season from our perspective.

“We don't want that to be the case. But between player welfare, execution, creativity and enthusiasm, all the ingredients that make us play the way we play, we need to take the rest periods into consideration.

“Most of the Scottish guys cannot play five games in a row. So that will have to be managed. That's why the players that played on Saturday night must be ready to take the baton or to give it to somebody else to come into that role.

“We also know that the first six games are going to be very important for us. But then there's four autumn internationals so that’s basically 10 games on the trot. So there's not a break for this squad until the first week in January.”