WHEN you are on a losing run, even one as short as the three-game sequence of defeats that Glasgow currently have to their name, there is nothing like an easy game, preferably at home, to help you snap out of it. Unfortunately for the Warriors, Saturday’s visit to Racing 92 is nothing like an easy game.
At least the quality of the opposition should ensure that Gregor Townsend’s side are fully focused for this Champions Cup Pool One game. So should the fact that the stakes are pretty high for this one - with only the pool winners qualifying by right for the quarter-finals, and both teams having already lost once, another defeat would be a grievous blow for either side.
But the match in Paris remains a daunting task. Racing beat Glasgow there fairly comfortably in last season’s pool stages en route to finishing the tournament as runners-up, and since then have strengthened their team, notably through recruiting Leone Nakarawa from the Warriors. The big Fijian is a doubt for this game after injuring himself in the act of scoring last week, but Racing still have any number of other potential match-winners to choose from, not least former All Blacks Joe Rokocoko and Dan Carter.
Needless to say, Glasgow have gamebreakers of their own, and all should be welcomed back into the team after some of them sat out last week’s PRO12 loss to Munster. Townsend will not name his team tomorrow, but it would be a major surprise if he omitted Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell, Alex Dunbar and Jonny Gray, four of the stars who were rested against the Irish province after their involvement in the Autumn Tests.
What is more, the fact that those players were missing from the Munster game, plus the absence of other key men from the previous two league matches, will allow the Warriors to consign that run of losses to a separate sub-section of the season. That was then, they will be able to tell themselves with some justification. The real Warriors are back now.
“It’s good for all the boys to come back in,” Dunbar said yesterday. “We missed so many boys over the last few weeks - 14, 15 guys. There’s a great buzz for the game.”
The other thing in the Warriors’ favour as they finalise their preparations for Paris is the fact that there has been nothing mystifying about their recent losses. They made mistakes that they know they can rectify, and last week simply failed to get going at a decent pace until the second half, by which time they were chasing the game.
“We just can’t start as slow as that,” the Scotland centre continued. “We let them get into the game early on. Against these better sides, if you let them get into the game in the first 20 minutes it’s just an uphill battle from there. So we know we need to go out there and start well, put the other team under pressure and then we’ll know we’re in the game.
“It’s more just frustration. When you look at the games [lost], we’ve had chances and created a few overlaps and mismatches but just never really took the chances we had. We reviewed the game against Munster, and looking at the Ospreys game the week before, we need to start taking our chances and be more clinical.”
Dunbar missed out on last year’s away defeat against Racing because of a hamstring injury, but he was back in the side for the home win at Rugby Park so has first-hand knowledge of how tough a team they are - as well as knowing from personal experience that they can be beaten. “They’ve not been performing at the high level they have been in previous years, but they’re a quality team with top-class individuals, so we fully expect them to turn it on and for it to be a great game.
“They have a massive forward pack and they want to get these boys into the game. With the ball-carriers they want to get over the gainline and into second and third phase. We know how big a task it will be, but we have to go out there and play our game.
“It’s good to play against the best. You watch Carter and Rokocoko when you’re a young kid coming through, in your early teens. These are the guys you watch on TV all the time. It’s good to play against them.”
Nakarawa was hardly on TV all the time when Dunbar was growing up - indeed, he was not very well known at all here until signing for Glasgow, his first professional deal, in 2013. Since then, of course, he has won a reputation as one of the best second-row forwards in the world, and has the unusual knack of combining seriously intimidating physicality with some excellent handling skills.
Dunbar, for one, is looking forward to renewing acquaintance with his old team-mate. “He’s just an unbelievable athlete. For someone as big as that and as heavy as that, he’s dynamic as well. He can step, he’s played a lot of sevens and he’s elusive.
“His offloading game is probably the best in the world. It’s tough playing against these players, but it’s a great challenge going into it.
“He’s a chilled-out, quiet guy. A funny guy as well. It will be good to catch up.”
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