Glasgow Warriors look to make most of Irish teams’ mandatory three-week rest

It’s a good time to be playing Irish teams in the United Rugby Championship and Glasgow Warriors will look to make it two wins from two when they take on Connacht in Galway on Saturday.

Sione Tuipulotu is back training with Glasgow Warriors after the Rugby World Cup and available for this weekend's match against Connacht. (Photo by Ross MacDonald / SNS Group)

Having beaten Leinster with a bonus point last weekend, Franco Smith’s side are looking to make capital while the provinces are without their World Cup stars. The IRFU has imposed a mandatory three-week rest period for players who represented the national side in France - encouraging news for their URC rivals. Glasgow, by contrast, have all their World Cup players back in training and have a full squad to choose from for the match at the Sportsground. Nigel Carolan, the Warriors attack coach, played down the absence of Connacht’s star turns, pointing out that they were just three of the club’s players in the Ireland squad, but it was a significant trio.

“They are not overly affected by the World Cup despite having three of Ireland’s form players in Bundee Aki, Mack Hansen and Finlay Bealham,” said Carolan. “But in terms of numbers, they won’t be that affected and they will have that cohesion from having a longer pre-season than us. They’ve new coaches in place so they’ve had time to bed in as well - we are expecting a tough game.”

Huw Jones, Kyle Steyn, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Rory Darge, Johnny Matthews and George Horne from Scotland’s World Cup squad were all involved in the win over Leinster and Glasgow are further bolstered this week by the availability of Ollie Smith, Sione Tuipulotu, Ali Price, George Turner, Jamie Bhatti, Richie Gray, Matt Fagerson and Jack Dempsey, as well as Sione Vailanu who played for Tonga in France.

“The challenge for us is finding that cohesion with the guys who are coming back into our squad,” added Carolan. “Everyone is back in the building and available for selection but we’ve got to appreciate that we’ve had guys training here for pre-season. We need to continue some of the momentum from a decent win against a youngish Leinster side and we’ve got to resist the temptation to drop all of our internationals back in. They will be managed back into our systems and that can’t be done overnight. They won’t all be involved but there will be some guys involved.”