THE most highly paid rugby player in the world will turn out at Scotstoun next season when Racing 92 of France visit Glasgow in the Champions Cup.
Dan Carter, the All Blacks stand-off, will join the club from the Parisian suburbs after the Rugby World Cup, in time to turn out against the PRO12 champions in the pool stages of the premier European competition.
The Warriors and Racing will be joined in Pool Three by Scarlets, which means a swift return to his old club for DTH van der Merwe, the Canadian winger, and by Northampton Saints. Gregor Townsend, who played for Northampton for three seasons from 1995, welcomed a draw which has given his team a fighting chance of qualifying for the knockout stages.
"Northampton will be great for me personally, as I have very happy memories from being down there and they've grown so much since I was there," the head coach said yesterday on his club's website, glasgowwarriors.org. "We were involved in two high-quality attacking games against them three years ago and their new ground is a great rugby venue. The new stand they are building for next season will enhance this further. It will be a great place to play.
"They have been one of the best English teams over the last few years in terms of consistency in the league, and finished top of the Premiership last season. They've got a very strong forward pack and are one of the best teams in Europe in terms of line-out drive and scrum.
"They also have a very good counter-attack game, with some very intelligent players who make good decisions on the ball. We're expecting a really tough challenge against them."
In addition to Carter, who will earn over £1 million a year from his new employers, Racing have also signed Martin Castrogiovanni, the Italian tighthead prop. "Racing 92 have one of the biggest budgets in world rugby and the highest paid player in world rugby will be joining them in Dan Carter," Townsend continued. "They've recruited a lot of experienced players for next season and have got quality and real strength in depth.
"It's a new team for us as a club to play against, one of the leading teams in France, who have invested heavily to get better for next season. They've shown in some games over the last 12 months what they are capable of and they came close to making the Champions Cup Final last season, just losing out to Saracens at the quarter-final stage."
Carter, 33, last played in this country in November 2014, when he made his comeback from injury for New Zealand in an Autumn Test at Murrayfield.. It was a relatively low-key outing for the man often dubbed the best rugby player in the world, and he was substituted 15 minutes into the second half of a game which New Zealand won 24-16.
Scarlets, the most lowly ranked team in the pool, will be expected to finish last. But Townsend knows the attacking prowess of Van der Merwe all too well, and does not need to look back too far for the last time Glasgow lost in Llanellii - it was last season in the PRO12. The Warriors got their revenge when the Welsh team travelled north a couple of months later, but the coach is well aware that Scarlets can rise to the occasion.
"DTH said at the end of last season that we'd be playing together in the Champions Cup and he's been proved right! Scarlets have a very good history in Europe and they've made the quarter-finals and semi-finals before - and they have a very good attacking game, which can win big games in this competition. I thought they played very well last year, which was probably one of the toughest pools up against Toulon, Ulster and Leicester.
"They have real quality throughout their backline, which already has the likes of Liam Williams, Regan King and Scott Williams - and when you add DTH to the mix they'll be very threatening out wide. They have two quality openside flankers in John Barclay and James Davies and with John also capable of playing at No 8.
"We've had some good battles with them. They beat us down there last season and we beat them at Scotstoun, so we know they'll be very difficult games."
Of the five groups of four teams, Pool 5 is the toughest on paper, with all of its teams - Bath, Wasps, Leinster and Toulon - having been European champions. Toulon have won the title for the last three years and will start the tournament as favourites to make it four in a row.
Two more former champions, Toulouse and Ulster, have been drawn in Pool 1 alongside Saracens and Oyonnax. Pool 4 also has two teams who know what it takes to win the title, with Munster and Leicester being joined by Stade Francais, who have twice been runners-up, and Treviso. Pool 2 contains Clermont, Bordeaux, Exeter Chiefs and the Ospreys.
The first round of pool fixtures will take place in mid-November, two weeks after the Rugby World Cup final is held at Twickenham. Pool winners and the three best runners-up will go through to the knockout stages, and the final will be played at the new Grand Stade de Lyon on 14 May 2016.
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