Sean Lineen makes the most of his tight resources to sign Muldowney and Harley

GLASGOW coach Sean Lineen insisted he was pleased with the make-up of his squad and would not use tight budgets as an excuse, after signing up a teenager and English championship player to fill the second row void.

Lineen completed the signing yesterday of Aly Muldowney, a 26-year-old 6ft 5in second row from English Championship Moseley, and expects to conclude a deal to bring West of Scotland's under-20 cap Robert Harley on board after Tim Barker and Dan Turner agreed moves to Ulster and to Japan respectively.

On Muldowney, Lineen said: "He will be a real good, solid addition to the squad. With Dan and Tim going it leaves a huge hole in terms of the quality we've got, so he's got a massive challenge there. But he came up and we had a good look at him, and he fits our criteria. Being Scottish-qualified helps and he's a big ball-carrier; a really exciting addition."

Muldowney, a former basketball player with the Stoke Steelers, said that the move to a new Scotstoun training base this summer had been part of the attraction of turning pro with Glasgow, as had the potential to challenge for honours.

"It's always been my ambition to play at as high a level as possible," he said, "and I believe that Glasgow was a great option due to the appeal of playing in the Magners League and Heineken Cup.

"Despite offers from the Guinness Premiership, I was attracted to playing in the Magners League where, instead of fighting against relegation, you're playing to win. I now need to knuckle down and earn a place in what is a very competitive squad."

Lineen is hopeful he turns out to be a 'rough diamond', and when questioned on why there will be no bigger name signings for a club that is now vying with the best in the Magners League, the coach just smiled.

"There is one thing that stops that and it's money," he said, candidly.

"It's tough. That's probably my biggest challenge as head coach.

"But there are just not many ready-made replacements here (in Scotland]. Show me a Tim Barker or Dan Turner playing the game in Scotland. On the last count, we had 16 players aged 23 or under. That's a lot of Scottish youngsters that we're developing, which is fantastic and is a great part of our remit, and a part that we enjoy immensely, seeing these boys come through. But you've also got to be competitive and have experience, and want to win."

Glasgow work off just under 3 million per year – believed to be half of most Magners League sides and nearly a third of the budget at Munster, Leinster and Ospreys – and have used most of their extra just to keep internationalists deserving of salary increases. Ever the realist, Lineen is not about to lose sleep over it.

"That is just the environment we're in and we're not going to complain about that," he said. "We said at the start of the season there would be no excuses. We are very lucky and privileged to be in this position, doing a job we love, and you do get a huge amount of satisfaction from the number of players that have come through to the Scotland squad this season.

"You need to get a balance between having the belief in the Scottish players coming through and finding guys like Bernardo Stortoni, DTH van der Merwe and Kevin Tkachuk, because these guys really add to the squad. But these are exciting times and the guys that are going are still adding a lot to the squad, which shows the spirit we've got."