THE task for Glasgow Warriors’ young squad in the opening weeks of the season is clear: to make sure that the PRO12 champions are not the victims of their own success. Gregor Townsend has lost 16 players to the Scotland squad for the Rugby World Cup, and one each to Italy, Tonga, Fiji and the USA. The loss of so many internationals for the first few league fixtures has put a big responsibility on the less experienced players who will come in - or, as Zander Fagerson prefers to put it, a big chance to show what they can do at this level.
“It’s a massive opportunity with guys away at the World Cup,” Fagerson, the 19-year-old tighthead prop, said yesterday. “There’s a lot of competition at tighthead, but if I can perform my roles and do my job well, then hopefully I can push on and cement a place in the team.
“I’m just really enjoying my game just now. I’m feeling fit and strong, so as a young prop I just want to play as much rugby as I can. As a young player I’ll make mistakes, but I will learn from them and that will make me the best player I can be.
“I don’t think there’s extra pressure. I think a lot of guys are seeing that a few years back some players in this period put their hand up and played really well. Being PRO12 champions and having so many players away at the World Cup shows that Glasgow’s got a great system, and if you work hard now and play well there are opportunities down the line and you could push on to international honours.”
Four years back, to be precise, Stuart Hogg seized his chance and broke into the first team when many Warriors regulars were away on World Cup duty. Two years later he was selected for the Lions, and he is now part of Vern Cotter’s squad for this World Cup.
As a front-row forward, Fagerson is a completely different player than Hogg, but he seems to be the best placed of the current squad to follow the full-back’s example. Last season he regularly received rave reviews for some of his performances at age-group level, and has all the attributes needed to graduate to the highest honours, even if he insists, with a touch of self-deprecation, that he only moved to the front row because he was too slow to thrive elsewhere.
“I was too unfit and slow to play No 8,” he said. “It’s terrible to say, but I got pulled over at a camp when I was 15 telling me that I was okay at No 8, but if I wanted to make it in pro rugby, prop would be the place. I am quite strong, so that helped as well.”
Fagerson has come a long way in the four years since he made that switch, but so far he has resisted the temptation to look another four years into the future, and insisted that at present he is looking no further forward than Saturday’s home game against the Scarlets.
“It’s too far away to think about,” he added when asked if he dreamed of where he would be by the time the next World Cup comes around in 2019. “Every day I just want to learn as much as possible, focus on my game and how I’m playing. If in four years’ time I’m up to the mark and get selected I’ll be over the moon, but I’m just focusing on enjoying my rugby, staying injury-free and having a good season.
“Being PRO12 champions, there’s a lot of pressure on us. We’ve had a great pre-season and all the boys have worked really hard.
“A few years back the first game at Scotstoun was against Scarlets and we lost that, so hopefully we’re not going to do that this time. We want to start with a bang.”
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