Glasgow Warriors sweat on Ollie Smith injury as Scotland Six Nations doubts emerge

Smith’s knee injury could rule him out for months

Glasgow Warriors back Ollie Smith will learn in the coming days if the knee injury he sustained against Bayonne last Friday will rule him out of this season's Six Nations Championship. The 23-year-old had the injury assessed on Monday, and although the results may not be known until next week, Warriors assistant coach Pete Murchie admitted that a lengthy spell on the sidelines was a possibility.

“Ollie’s a little bit of a concern at the moment,” Murchie said. “That’s potentially going to be longer term than shorter term. He’s being assessed at the moment. It was a problem with his knee unfortunately, so, yeah, it’s definitely a concern. He’s having scans done to try and determine the full extent of it. Those can normally take a few days. So we imagine it’ll be next week before we really know the full situation with it.”

Smith, 23, is primarily a full-back, but was playing on the wing in his team’s Champions Cup victory in France. Josh McKay started at 15 against Bayonne and could do so again in Friday night’s 1872 Cup match against Edinburgh, though it appears more likely that the New Zealander will move to the wing as cover for Smith. “We still have plenty of options in the back three,” Murchie insisted. “Josh McKay, for example, Tom Jordan can easily slot in there, and Huw Jones has played 15 in the past. There’s plenty of guys who have good experience of playing high-level rugby at 15.”

Ollie Smith is set to miss key games for Glasgow Warriors - and potentially Scotland.

Smith has nine Scotland caps, and since Stuart Hogg retired earlier this year has primarily been seen as back-up for Blair Kinghorn at 15. If he is unable to play in part or all of the Championship, national coach Gregor Townsend is likely to go for utility cover for Kinghorn on the bench, with Jones, his Warriors team-mate Kyle Steyn, and Edinburgh winger Darcy Graham among those able to serve as the last line of defence.

Meanwhile, although Glasgow finished eight places and 25 points above Edinburgh in last season’s URC, Murchie expects them to offer a stern challenge to his own team this time round. “When you look at Edinburgh, obviously they didn’t finish in a good place last season,” he said. “But when we played them in the derbies last season, they were still in and around it. It wasn’t like they had a shocking season for the full year - they fell away at the end and didn’t win many games over the last couple of months of the season. But they’re still a good team with good players. They’ve got better as this season has gone on. They’ll be confident and they’ve been in good form, but we’ve been going all right ourselves.”