A WINNING start to the season is not going to stop Glasgow Warriors experimenting with team selection. That's the promise from Jason O'Halloran, the attack coach, who reckons there is another 30 per cent to come from the side if they are to come close to reaching their potential.
One result is that four or five "newbies" are likely to be blooded this week despite the bonus-point win over the Ospreys, one of last season's PRO12 semi-finalists, last time out as new head coach Dave Rennie relentlessly drives towards his goal of being able to rotate players without a drop in quality.
O'Halloran was keeping quiet about where the changes might come, but there are some obvious targets. After fielding the same front five in both opening games, you'd expect them to freshen that department; the injury picked up by Rory Hughes will force changes in the the back three and Nick Grigg is probably due a start after coming off the bench at centre.
"Dave's [Renie's] general philosophy, if you've followed him through the Chiefs, has been to rotate the squad and try to create competition for places. We've used 29 guys in the first couple of games and I'd imagine there would be another four of five newbies this time around. That's great," O'Halloran explained
There is also the guesswork about when Tommy Seymour will return to action after his summer with the British & Irish Lions. Will it be this week, away against Cardiff Blues, or next week, at home to Munster? He has been raring to go for a couple of weeks but held back by the coaches.
"He is ready to go now if he needs to," suggested O'Halloran. "He's enthusiastic and energetic. We gave him an extra week, 10 days over and above the other guys. He's pretty keen to have a run."
It is a question of judging when he is ready. They have enough options on the wing not to be under pressure to rush him back, but also need to give him enough games to be match sharp ahead of the European campaign.
What is clear is that one reason for the promised changes is that nobody at Glasgow is trying to use the result last week to pretend they have cracked the secret of performing to the standards they expect of themselves. The result was everything they could have asked for; the performance nowhere near. With Munster due at Scotstoun in nine days, they don't have much time to get it right.
"One big lesson is that, individually, I don't think we prepared particularly well," O'Halloran admitted. "There were a lot of individual performances that weren't up to what they should have been. The challenge for us this week is to get that right from one to 23 – prepare well.
"You'll hear Steve Hansen [the New Zealand head coach] say time and again, 'Prepare bone deep and you'll perform well'. I don't think we prepared well enough last week and we'll have to put that right."
The third game in was where things started to go wrong last season. O'Halloran has plenty of respect for Cardiff Blues who, coincidentally, were also the opponents in the equivalent match 12 months ago but have lost twice already this campaign, but he is solid in his conviction that not only is there no room for complacency, there is no reason for it.
"The better sides, they don't care about the opposition, they get their own nuts and bolts sorted out," he pointed out. "Leinster played Cardiff last week and they played Leinster's game. All good sides do that. Crusaders play Crusaders' game. That's a lesson we should take. Sure you bring in some tactics to exploit weaknesses you might see but, ultimately, getting the Glasgow game sorted is the main element for us.
"They [Cardiff] will be inspired to play really well after the Ospreys taught us a lot of lessons around the combative side of the game. I thought we came a long second at the breakdown.
"As Dave [Rennie] said, we didn't win any races and that slowed down our ball. That allowed them to put more line speed in and force errors in our attack.
"They had over 60 per cent of the ball, which led to us making over 230 tackles. We can't continue to do that week after week as it will take a toll on us. If we want to play at tempo, the last thing we want is a bunch of fatigued guys who've been making so many tackles."
Cardiff should be an easier task than the Ospreys, their confidence rocked by a poor start and the news that Sam Warburton, the Lions captain and club talisman, is out for four months after surgery, but O'Halloran is not lifting the pressure on his players.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here