If Glasgow’s centres were hoping to prove themselves an attraction for Scotland coach Gregor Townsend, this run out against the Ospreys in Swansea was the last chance to force their way into the delayed Six Nations clash back in Wales.
Scotland squad members Sam Johnson, Nick Grigg and Huw Jones were all deployed by Glasgow coach Danny Wilson, with Jones at full-back, but none nailed their place as a replacement for Chris Harris, James Lang or Adam Hastings.
Johnson was solid enough, but could do with a couple more games before an international return, while the others showed flashes but faded along with their team as Glasgow slipped to a 23-15 defeat after early dominance.
Jones started and finished the first try, hooker George Turner got his side’s second from a driving line-out, but the visitors failed to add to those two tries in the first 18 minutes, with only a Peter Horne penalty to add in the last hour.
“It was a great opportunity for some of those guys to get a first game, for instance Sam Johnson’s first game for eight months, so at least some of these guys are back and I’ll leave Scotland selection with other people,” said Wilson.
“Ultimately for us we will focus on the fact it was not the result we were after and the learnings we take from that.
“I think it will be the difference between two halves of rugby that we played, one really well and controlling but did not turn enough of that pressure into points and the second half where we did not have any pressure until the end of the game.
“We had a few youngsters playing, Jamie Dobie I felt did some really good things for a 19-year-old scrum-half and is an exciting player for the future.
“Hamish Bain is a young second row who had to play a lot more for his first ever game than we wanted to but we did not have a second row on the bench so we had to bring a back row in and he had to play a bit longer.
“They are good experiences for these guys and long term it will do us good, but today is disappointing.”
Having let the Ospreys back into the game and then into a decent lead, Glasgow had opportunities at the end to claim a losing bonus point at least. They spurned a kickable penalty to go for the try, but disappointingly ended taking nothing from the game.
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