The plan had always been to take a decent mid-season break, but Dave Rennie could enjoy it all the more after Glasgow Warriors’ last performance ahead of the autumn international window.
A fair few of the club’s more senior men were to be part of a Scotland side that put in a disappointing performance along the south Wales coast the following day, but a team of fringe players and up-and-comers, supplemented by more seasoned imports could hardly have been more impressive in taking Pro14 Conference rivals the Ospreys apart at the beginning of the month.
“My wife and I went to Barcelona for three days, then we got a rental car and drove up the south of France. It was beautiful. We had a good break… about eight days,” he recounted.“There was no footy. I watched some international stuff on TV in a bar in Perpignan that had the Scottish-Fiji game on and the All Blacks-England, so I was in heaven. We’ve been going for three months pretty full on, so it was a chance to freshen up for everyone. We gave the boys 10 days off and came back last Thursday.”
Rennie returned fully refreshed, then and was delighted on doing so, with what he encountered back at Scotstoun.
“We had a really good Thursday-Friday last week: we got some good work into the boys and got a bit of a head start on Cardiff around the analysis, so we’re probably a day or two ahead of where we’d normally be this time of the week. Attitude has been really good - the boys have come in and tested really well, a number of PBs, so mentally refreshed. It’s important with such a long season over here that you need to find windows to freshen guys up.
“In the last month the intensity was excellent. We were pretty clinical with ball in hand. We got ourselves in a good spot. When you have a couple of weeks off you’ve got to make sure that you get back to where we finished, so I’m looking forward to getting back into things against Cardiff.”
With Glasgow players forming half the Scotland squad that has been together for the autumn, a number will return tomorrow once their final full-scale training session has taken place, but he knows he will have a competitive group available to him no matter who remains on international duty.
“That’s always been the goal and that’s the good thing about this time of year,” Rennie observed. “It’s easy to complain, but we want as many guys playing for Scotland as we can. That’s helping us create really good depth and learn more about a number of these young fellows who have fronted really well. That augurs well for the future.”
That depth could hardly have been better exemplified than in Swansea when Ruaridh Jackson suffered a hamstring injury early on, only to be replaced by Niko Matawalu, who went on to score a hat-trick. Jackson has meanwhile now recovered and Rennie paid tribute to the squad’s backroom team for ensuring that so many are available.
“Sam (Johnson) is going to be out for a while, he’s maybe six or eight weeks away still. Zander (Fagerson) is not due back until February or March, but Tim Swinson is close to returning and we’ve got a few bumps and bruises from other guys who are close,” he said. “We’re not too bad off from an injury perspective. Our medics and trainers have done a really good job of getting our boys back on the park.”
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