December has long been the cruellest month for Glasgow Warriors fans. All too often, optimism engendered by autumn wins in Europe has been dynamited by winter losses at that time of the year when their team has played the same opponents on consecutive weekends. Prior to last season, the Warriors had won just two of their previous 15 back-to-back fixtures.
Yet here they are now, looking to stretch their run of wins in these games to four. Last season, they swatted Scarlets aside with some ease, and this evening they have the precious chance to follow up their 23-14 win over Racing ’92 in Paris last Saturday with another victory over the French side at Scotstoun tonight. That outcome would kill off Racing’s hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages, while the Warriors would go into the new year with their own dreams of a place in the last last eight very much bolstered.
There had been speculation that Racing, having now lost to Munster and Glasgow and with a lot of ground to make up in the French Top 14 Championship, might even have thrown in the towel by now. On the face of it, the fact their starting side tonight shows eight personnel changes — and one rather significant positional move — to the one that faced up to Glasgow last weekend might suggest that to be the case, but the detail of those changes suggest they are still very much determined to keep the fight alive.
However, there is certainly a change of thinking, as Racing are clearly minded to steamroll Glasgow up front. As Gregor Townsend, the Glasgow head coach, scanned the Racing team list yesterday afternoon, he knew immediately that subtlety was not the watchword. “They’ve probably picked the biggest set of forwards ever to be assembled,” Townsend said.
They have certainly picked the biggest tighthead prop on the scene, handing the (massive) jersey to Ben Tameifuna, their 23-stone Auckland-born behemoth. Tameifuna is a sight to behold, but Townsend was quick to point out that there is more than grunt in his game.
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“He is one of the best tightheads in terms of skills in open play,” said the Warriors coach. “Size doesn’t mean you’re going to be slow. But it does mean they’ll put more weight on things like lineout drive and scrum and ball-carrying.”
Racing were not particularly impressive in any of those areas last weekend. They had skewered Glasgow with their lineout drive in last year’s Champions Cup, but the Scots showed they were fast learners and dealt with the tactic superbly. Townsend’s team also put their knowledge of Leone Nakarawa’s game to good use, closing down their former team-mate when-ever he was near the ball.
That pattern no doubt informed the decision of Laurent Travers, the Racing coach, to move Nakarawa from lock to No 8. The Fijian filled in there for Glasgow a few times, and his unique ball-handling skills could cause problems for the Scotstoun side if he is allowed to get into his stride.
While Townsend understood the thinking behind the switch — which also allows Racing to draft the hefty duo of Gerbrandt Grobler and Francois ven der Merwe into their second row — he didn’t sound wholly convinced by it.
Townsend said: “I’ve read that they see his future as a No 8 because he’s such a great attacker. You have someone of 6ft 7in or 6ft 8in at No 8, you can still play open rugby and have another option in your lineout. I can see the benefits from that.
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“He’s so good around the set piece and the scrum, and he’s been used to playing at second row that there was no second row like him. There will be a few No 8s out there that are very good ball-carriers, but there were never really second rows like him, so it was a huge advantage having him there as a second row.”
To some extent, Glasgow’s past problems at this time of year can be explained by the strength of the opponents they have been up against in the back-to-back matches. Two seasons ago, their promising start to the Champions Cup — they had beaten Bath and Montpellier in their October games — was followed by two successive losses to Toulouse.
How they line up
Glasgow Warriors: S Hogg; T Seymour, A Dunbar, S Johnson, L Jones; F Russell, A Price; G Reid, F Brown, Z Fagerson, T Swinson, J Gray (captain), R Harley, R Wilson, J Strauss. Replacements: C Flynn, A Allan, S Puafisi, B Alainu’uese, C Fusaro, H Pyrgos, M Bennett, S Lamont.
Racing 92: B Dulin; T Thomas, C Laulala, A Tuitavke, M Andreu; D Carter, M Machenaud (captain); V Afatia, C Chat, B Tameifuna, G Grobler, F Van der Merwe,
W Lauret, C Masoe, L Nakarawa. Replacements: D Szarzewski, E Ben Arous, C Gomes Sa, T Dubarry, A Claassen, X Chauveau, B Dambielle,
J Rokocoko.
Referee: G Clancy (IRFU).
Townsend also acknowledged that his side, and Celtic teams in general, are hit disproportionately hard (in comparison to French and English teams) by international call-ups in November, and that bringing Test players back into a club side could be a challenging exercise. In that regard, he had every reason to be satisfied by the performances in Paris of a host of players — Finn Russell, Jonny Gray and Alex Dunbar being the most prominent — who were playing their first games for the Warriors in more than a month.
Small wonder, then, that Townsend, who rarely shirks the temptation to change a winning formula, should have kept faith as much as he could with the 15 players who started for Glasgow in the Stade Yves du Manoir last weekend. The only one missing from tonight’s starting line-up is Simone Favaro, who has paid a familiar price for his high-octane, high-risk style of play by picking up a shoulder injury. In his absence, Josh Strauss comes into the side at No 8, with Ryan Wilson moving across to fill Favaro’s openside berth.