Last year’s experiences have encouraged Glasgow Warriors to heighten their awareness of how their players maintain their conditioning during the Six Nations Championship, but they also believe that the very different competitive environment they find themselves in will help with that process.
A year ago after the tournament finished, head coach Dave Rennie registered his concern about the fitness of scrum-half Ali Price who started the international competition as Scotland’s first choice, but then made way for the returning Greig Laidlaw and he is back in the role of under-studying the Scotland captain this time around.
Price, along with Adam Hastings, Pete Horne and Rob Harley have all been returned to the camp this week, released to play against Cardiff Blues on Saturday and Kenny Murray, Glasgow’s assistant coach, confirmed that the management team has been paying closer attention to those who are not getting regular game time.
“I know Dave was pretty clear on what he felt Ali had to work on last year, but now he’s looking as sharp, for me, as he’s ever looked,” said Murray.
“He trained well with Scotland, as far as I believe, he played well when he came on, and when he played for us before he went with Scotland you could see again how sharp he was, so he’s looking really good and, yeah, we do need to make sure that guys who are not getting a lot of game time with Scotland are managed back into the squad, because it’s tough when you’ve not played for three or four weeks to then come back in and play 80 minutes.
“So we try and manage that as best we can and they’ve been training hard with Scotland. Scotland sessions are pretty tough, so there will be a lot of running in them and we can see what the guys have been doing during those sessions as well.”
Part of the problem a year ago was that during this period Glasgow were coasting in the Pro14 where they secured top spot in their Conference and a home semi-final with half a dozen games still to play, while they were out of the European Champions Cup.
This time around that has been turned on its head, with a Champions Cup quarter-final to look forward, but also everything to play for in the Pro14 through this period, having let what had again been a commanding lead slip over the festive period, allowing Munster to overtake them at the top of the Conference and others to close the gap in the race for the other two play-off places.
Less comfortable it may be, but it has provided the coaches with some additional tools to keep players minds on the job in hand as they simultaneously seek to strengthen their position in the domestic competition, while seeking to prepare for that trip to Saracens in the Champions Cup.
“We’ve set up a wee league table for this Six Nations window. Before Ospreys we started with zero points, now we’ve got four, so we’re just trying to focus in on the season,” Murray explained.
“The context has dramatically changed from last year. Last year we were ahead - if you lose a game it doesn’t really matter, does it? Now if you lose a game you’re under real pressure, because you’ve got teams behind you. Depending on what way you look at it, it could be a negative thing in terms of you want to be 20 points ahead, but we’re looking at it that you’ve got to perform.
“If we don’t perform then we’re under real pressure. So, it does help motivate guys a wee bit more than maybe it did last year.
“We had a couple of weeks off, we came back in on Thursday there, we did our review of the Ospreys game on Thursday so we got back into it right away looking at that game and how we played there.
“Dave wasn’t here, so he was able to get back in and talk about that as well and then we’ve already started our preview with Cardiff. We’re straight back into it, there’s no messing about.”
Rennie’s absence for the Ospreys match while attending his son’s wedding in New Zealand, had given Murray his first taste of taking the reins as acting head coach at professional level and the man who previously steered Ayr to Scottish Premiership titles admitted to taking more satisfaction from the outcome than the performance which was decidedly un-Glasgow like as they ground their way to a try-less win.
As much as they will be looking to improve performance levels over the next couple of weeks, then, the same basic requirements pertain.
“It’s crucial now, isn’t it? Cardiff and then Connacht - they’re 10 [and eight respectively] points behind us now, so if we can knock Cardiff off and go 13 or 14 ahead and then the same with Connacht a week later…” said Murray, leaving the thought unfinished, but perfectly clear none the less.
“It’s two huge games for us: win them and that helps us stay on Munster’s coat-tails. We’ve got some hard games coming up towards the end of the season, so we need to make sure that we do well in the next few weeks.”
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