Allan Massie: Return of Richie Gray a major plus as Glasgow recover from loss of big three

At 31, lock may still recover the spark of his younger days

Richie Gray could yet return to the Scotland team despite competition from younger brother Jonny, Scott Cummings and Grant Gilchrist. Picture: SNS/SRU.

W  ell, we are tip-toeing with fingers crossed towards the rugby season, or at least the professional one. I say “at least” because not many murmurs have yet disturbed the silence on the amateur front, though, all being well and the wretched virus clamped down, one may hope for word from Murrayfield concerning it. Otherwise the talk is mostly about money, or rather the lack of it, even if in Scotland we are spared some of the uncertainty and confusion afflicting England’s Premiership clubs, and can even lift our gaze over the parapet and look ahead.

Glasgow have been our standard-bearer in both Europe and the Pro 14 for a few years now, even though the balance rather tipped towards Edinburgh over the last 12 months. Things don’t look quite so bright at Scotstoun now. The penalty of success in a small country is that clubs elsewhere bait a line for the biggest fish.

So Glasgow have lost three of their biggest stars in the last couple of years, Finn Russell being lured to Racing92 and Stuart Hogg and Jonny Gray to Exeter Chiefs. Adam Hastings has developed quickly enough to take Russell’s place, but there is no full-back of Hogg’s class or with his ability to conjure magical tries from nothing, and Jonny Gray has been the outstanding lock in Scotland for four or five years now. He will be missed even if the rapidity of Scott Cummings’ development over the last two seasons softens the blow.

However, doors revolve and if Jonny Gray has moved out, big brother Richie has moved back in. His return was the most interesting news this so-called summer, even more interesting that the announcement that the great Fijian Leone Nakarawa has signed for another year.

Still there are question-marks over Richie. Is he the player he was six or seven years ago? If not, can he be that player again or has a succession of injuries taken its toll. He has 62 Scotland caps, winning his first against France, as a substitute in 2010, a long time ago when the young man was competing for a place against Jim Hamilton, Alastair Kellock and the veteran Nathan Hines. He last played for Scotland in 2018.

Many thought Gregor Townsend should have included him in the World Cup squad in Japan last year, but he had apparently asked not to be considered.This wasn’t surprising because he had only recently returned from injury to play for 
Toulouse.

In his prime he was a wonderfully exciting player. Magnificent in the line-out, aggressive and fast in open play, rampaging all over the field like a bull elephant, but an elephant with good hands capable of delivering audacious passes. Recently, however, playing for Toulouse, he has looked a hard-working lock, still excellent in the line-out and doing the right thing, but inconspicuous in broken play and lacking the spark of his younger great days.

This may return if he can stay free of injury and have enough time on the field, for he is still only 31, no great age for a lock; some like Paul O’Connell and Alun Wyn Jones today have played their best rugby in their 30s. He might even return to the Scotland team. Though competition is stiff, from brother Jonny, young Cummings and Edinburgh’s Grant Gilchrist, a fit Richie raring to go would still offer something none of the others quite has.

Otherwise Glasgow look capable of competing with anyone when all their internationals are available, but, as their new coach Danny Wilson admits, they are perhaps a bit thin on the ground when Scotland calls deprive them of perhaps two-thirds of a team. They don’t have a production line as efficient as Leinster’s and they don’t have the culture and inner certainty that make Munster formidable no matter how many players Ireland call upon. There are some positions in which they have strength in depth –centre three-quarter, hooker and scrum-half for instance, even though they may be down to a third choice at both 2 and 9.

Having Nakarawa available again is obviously a good thing, but Callum Gibbons has gone, and Danny Wilson might be excused for hoping that Gregor Townsend has such back-row strength that he feels no need for young Matt Fagerson.

One senses that this season, when it gets going, may be at best a holding one for Glasgow, and that they may now be playing second fiddle to Richard Cockerill’s Edinburgh. A resurgent Richie Gray might make things look different, but a requirement to play matches behind closed doors might hit Glasgow harder than Edinburgh, the Scotstoun crowd having been a factor in their success whereas Edinburgh are accustomed to vast empty spaces at Murrayfield.

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