RICHIE Gray could return to action for Glasgow against Munster on Monday night, but his fellow-lock Leone Nakarawa is still recovering from a knee injury and will not feature.
Gray has missed the Warriors’ last two games after suffering concussion in the match against the Ospreys, while Nakarawa has not played since lockdown. Those injuries and others have left Danny Wilson very short of second rows, but yesterday the head coach sounded cautiously optimistic that Gray would be back soon. “Making progress,” he said. “He’s on the right side of the concussion protocol. He’s not confirmed yet to play this weekend, but at the moment he’s making strides in the right area.
“When he was going through the protocol he only got so far before he had symptoms again. Hopefully this week he gets through that a bit quicker or a bit better.”
Nakarawa’s fellow-Fijian, hooker Mesu Dolokoto, could also come into consideration for Monday’s home PRO14 fixture. An ankle injury has so far prevented him from joining up with his national squad for the Autumn Nations Cup, and with 29 positive Covid cases having been revealed in camp on Tuesday there is now a strong possibility that Fiji will not play at all in the tournament.
“We thought Mesu would be flying out at the start of this week to join the Fiji squad and then all of the news we heard broke,” Wilson continued. “At the moment he’s training with us. He had a minor injury two weeks ago but has recovered - that coincided with when he was supposed to join up with Fiji.
“He might be [available for Monday]. But we have to confirm with other camps.”
Even if Scotland’s game against Fiji on Saturday week is called off, Wilson thinks he is unlikely to have players released back to him until after the Nations Cup play-off round the following week, when the Warriors have a rescheduled game against the Dragons.
In the meantime, the match against Munster, who have won all five of their games so far, is set to be another stiff challenge for Wilson’s side, who have lost four of their five.
“You just have to prepare this group of players the best you can in the circumstances that we’re in,” the coach added. “We always go in with the mindset of trying to win. We know we go into a lot of these games as depleted underdogs, but that doesn’t mean we think it’s acceptable to lose. Attitude is the most important thing.”
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