Glasgow Warriors vs Scarlets

GLASGOW WARRIORS TEAM TO PLAY SCARLETS IN THE RABODIRECT PRO12 AT FIRHILL ON THURSDAY 9 FEBRUARY (KICK-OFF 7.05PM, LIVE ON BBC ALBA)

15 Peter Murchie

14 Tommy Seymour
13 Troy Nathan
12 Graeme Morrison (Captain)
11 David Lemi

10 Ruaridh Jackson
9 Henry Pyrgos

1 Ryan Grant
2 Dougie Hall
3 Jon Welsh
4 Rob Verbakel
5 Tom Ryder
6 Rob Harley
7 Chris Fusaro
8 Ryan Wilson

SUBSTITUTES

16 Fergus Thomson
17 Gordon Reid
18 George Hunter
19 Nick Campbell
20 Calum Forrester
21 Murray McConnell
22 Alex Dunbar
23 Scott Wight

Not considered for selection due to injury: Federico Aramburu (shoulder), Johnnie Beattie (elbow), Michael Cusack (ankle), Rob Dewey (shoulder), Moray Low (knee), DTH van der Merwe (shoulder)

Confirms Morrison out of the Scotland squad and that Weir, Kalman and Hogg are likely to be involved. Will be interesting to see how Welsh goes packing down at TH

Scarlets absolutely screwed yet again. WRU players not released until Thursday morning.

So a few of them will be left with no rugby to play on a weekend in the middle of the rugby season.

How long can this utter shambles of a season structure go on for?

That's a good Warriors team, particularly strong pack.

Good also to know that Welsh can play both sides, and great to see Jackson back.

Good opportunity this for Glasgow to cement their position in the playoff spots.

Scarlets team
15 Dan Newton, 14 Viliami Iongi, 13 Gareth Maule (capt), 12 Adam Warren, 11 Andy Fenby, 10 Aled Thomas, 9 Gareth Davies, 1 Iestyn Thomas 2 Emyr Phillips , 3 Peter Edwards, 4 Sione Timani, 5 Dominic Day 6 Josh Turnbull, 7 Johnathan Edwards, 8 Matt Gilbert.

Replacements: 16 Craig Hawkins, 17 Rhodri Jones, 18 Simon Gardiner, 19 Damian Welch, 20 Kieran Murphy, 21 Liam Davies, 22 Nick Reynolds, 23 Daniel Evans

Neither side are particularly bad. I am gutted that Jackson didn't go straight into the national squad with Parks retiring though.

Also I would not be suprised to see Aaron Shingler, Steve Jones, Lou Reed and/or Liam Williams appearing on the bench.

ScarletSpiderman wrote:
Also I would not be suprised to see Aaron Shingler, Steve Jones, Lou Reed and/or Liam Williams appearing on the bench.

How can that happen? If they are released they are in limbo now the team has been named. Unless there is a mysterious virus where 4 team mebers are struck down suddenly.

This rugby season of ours cannot be taken seriously under the current structure. And this is the competition that qualifies the Wellsh teams for Europe!!!!

Ridiculous.

Chunky - I thought that teams only had be officially named something like an hour or so before the kick-off. Also I don't think we have too much right to complain about the loss of internationals, as over recent years that has played to our advantage as we lost less than the Blues and Ospreys.

Warriors pack is pretty tasty especially the backrow... Almost first choice at the minute!

Scarlet - Jackson hasn't played any rugby in a right few weeks because of his hamstring so was never going to be called into the squad, especially with Weir and Laidlaw both in form.

I think Chunky's talking about the fact that the int players needed to be rested for a month at the start of the season to recover from the the intense training from June til Aug, the Warm Ups and the WC, then just as they are getting into the swing of the league the HEC starts, then the ints are pulled out for the meaningless Oz game missing a few games, then they are thrown back into the mix for the xmas derbies and just about given a run in the team between the league and HEC, before going away for the 6N training camp - and now we haven't got the players because they haven't been released until the day of the game.

Hence one of the reasons why few Welsh internationals were on form for their regions, and the regions performed poorly in Europe

Still good to see Turnbull and Gardiner back, it's not a bad Scarlets side especially when you consider we have something like 13 players missing for international duty and another (what?) 16/17 players out injured.

Ulsterman - yeah I know Jackson has been out since he fell over kicking the ball at Parc Y Scarlets, but I was hoping the Scotts would call him up (in light of Parks retirement) just to weaken Glasgow a little bit more in the backs. Selfish I know.

Smirnoff & Chunky - I do see your point yeah it is a sod that we have lost internationals for huge chunks of this season, and the WRU don't really do anything to give you a helping hand (like releasing players who are obviously not in contention or not injuring our players, or ending their careers). However that is the price to pay for having such talent in the region. And when you see at the sides we field with out the internationals around I think we could do a heap worse.

Scarlet - In fairness Scott Wight is no slouch when it comes to getting a backline moving and has had his fair share of experience this year so I probably wouldn't have been too worried as a Glasgow fan had he been out...

My biggest worry for this game is how poor the attendance could be! Thursday night, bloody cold, no big names... Could struggle to get 2000 into Firhill tomorrow night.

UlstermaninGlasgow wrote:Thursday night, bloody cold, no big names... Could struggle to get 2000 into Firhill tomorrow night.

That just makes it even colder as there is less body heat from the folk around you.

I like the look of that Scarlets team actually.

Just a question, with it being an evening kick off, will the match actually go ahead? isn't there a really really big risk of the pitch being frozen?

Strong Glasgow team, lots of beef upfront. Would like Dunbar to get more than 15mins. Jackson needs all the game time he can get.

Why's it on a Thursday night?

Good pack for Glasgow but look at the bench....

Also, Welsh at tighthead??

I've got to be honest, I don't recognise barely any of the Glasgow players at all. Who are the ones to look out for?

rugbydreamer wrote:I've got to be honest, I don't recognise barely any of the Glasgow players at all. Who are the ones to look out for?

Dreamer the one's to watch are probably the whole back row, especially Rob Harley who is a treecutter on par with Kelly B when he puts his mind to it, Tom Ryder, who has been having a fantastic season this year even with Al and Ritchie about and Scott Wight on the bench, who looks to be another good prospect for Scotland at 10. Pyrgos is another who has impressed this year too.

And in fairness it's been a lot warmer up here than down south... Never thought I'd say that but the lowest it's been in Glasgow is about -2/-3C... And Firhill has undersoil which has probably been on since Sunday!

ScarletSpiderman wrote: However that is the price to pay for having such talent in the region.

What incentive is there for producing all this talent, when they only play a handful of games a season?

Look at how close the Dragons team is to their full strength team. MASSIVE advantage in this league for them.

What an absolute farce - Wales play Scotland in Cardiff, and two Welsh regions travel to Scotland in the same week to play league games.

And people wonder why the domestic game in Wales is sufferring?

Chunky Norwich wrote:

ScarletSpiderman wrote: However that is the price to pay for having such talent in the region.

What incentive is there for producing all this talent, when they only play a handful of games a season?

Look at how close the Dragons team is to their full strength team. MASSIVE advantage in this league for them.

What an absolute farce - Wales play Scotland in Cardiff, and two Welsh regions travel to Scotland in the same week to play league games.

And people wonder why the domestic game in Wales is sufferring?

Just look at where the Dragons are in the Rabo, LV= and the HC/Amlin, and then compare it to where we are. We have reached the knockout stages in the LV=, and we have reached the knockout stages of the Amlin, and are currently one place of 4th (playoff spot) in the Rabo. That is the reward for incentive for producing htis talent. COme the AMlin QF we should have a bunch of players back with us, feeling rather good off the back of a very dominant 6Ns Grand Slam (or maybe not), at the peak of their competitiveness.

AsLongAsBut100ofUs wrote:Scarlets team
15 Dan Newton, 14 Viliami Iongi, 13 Gareth Maule (capt), 12 Adam Warren, 11 Andy Fenby, 10 Aled Thomas, 9 Gareth Davies, 1 Iestyn Thomas 2 Emyr Phillips , 3 Peter Edwards, 4 Sione Timani, 5 Dominic Day 6 Josh Turnbull, 7 Johnathan Edwards, 8 Matt Gilbert.

Replacements: 16 Craig Hawkins, 17 Rhodri Jones, 18 Simon Gardiner, 19 Damian Welch, 20 Kieran Murphy, 21 Liam Davies, 22 Nick Reynolds, 23 Daniel Evans

Maule and Turnbull
Gardiner, Welch and Davies

RDW_Scotland wrote:Why's it on a Thursday night?

Good pack for Glasgow but look at the bench....

Also, Welsh at tighthead??

He's definitely played there before, and may even have originally been signed as one? Anyway, its making a point that we've got other versatile props than Dickinson!

I'm really impressed with the strength in that team considering who were missing - I can't wait to see how much better players like G Davies, Gilbert, Murphy & Warren are going to be next season as well. Hopefully Gardiner can get a lot of gametime before the end of the 6N as well.

There's going to be some serious competition next season, particularly if the WRU don't insist on a Dec international

This one's on BBC Alba for those who can't get to the game and live in Scotland.

I think I read somewhere that it's on S4C as well for those in Wales and can understand/put up with the Welsh - personally I quite enjoy the Welsh commentary though it is shockingly biased.

Smirnoff - It's on Scrum V Live on BBC 2 (in Wales) at 19:00

Ahh ok - that's good cheers SS

Smirnoffpriest wrote:Ahh ok - that's good cheers SS

Not really it means I will be in the dog house after the weekend, as its us tonight (so no cori for the wife), under 20s tomorrow night (so no cori for the wife), Six Nations on the weekend (so no dross whatever for the wife). All in all that means no peace for me come the final whistle on Sunday

ScarletSpiderman wrote:

Smirnoffpriest wrote:Ahh ok - that's good cheers SS

Not really it means I will be in the dog house after the weekend, as its us tonight (so no for the wife), under 20s tomorrow night (so no for the wife), Six Nations on the weekend (so no whatever for the wife). All in all that means no peace for me come the final whistle on Sunday

Fixed that for you.

Glas - to be fair mate that didn't need editting as there is none of that anyway, i'm bleeding married lol

UlstermaninGlasgow wrote:

rugbydreamer wrote:I've got to be honest, I don't recognise barely any of the Glasgow players at all. Who are the ones to look out for?

Dreamer the one's to watch are probably the whole back row, especially Rob Harley who is a treecutter on par with Kelly B when he puts his mind to it, Tom Ryder, who has been having a fantastic season this year even with Al and Ritchie about and Scott Wight on the bench, who looks to be another good prospect for Scotland at 10. Pyrgos is another who has impressed this year too.

And in fairness it's been a lot warmer up here than down south... Never thought I'd say that but the lowest it's been in Glasgow is about -2/-3C... And Firhill has undersoil which has probably been on since Sunday!

Cheers for the reply, looks like it might well be a battle of the backrow then. Will be a tough job for Turnbull on his first game back from injury again, but Gilbert and JEdwards have been on good form.

And I'm glad it's not been so cold up there, really looking forward to this match!

missed kicks from both Jackson and Newton so far.

Fast paced game to start with, only 10 mins in. Conditions looking pretty good up there.

3-0 to Glasgow, some lovely offloading in their game, Scarlets really going to have to stay ultra focused on their defence.

3-3 now, Iestyn down with an injury, can't see him staying on too much longer.

Iestyn down with a head injury, looking like they are going to have to stretcher him off. He was up kneeling for a bit but he doesn't look good. Am hoping it's all just precautionary.

Hope he is ok

Me too Cymro.

Scarlets reeeeeally need to start watching their discipline. Glasgow with a scrum v.

Try for John Welsh for Glasgow.

JEdwards is back to his penalty machine worse, argh!

penalty right in front of the sticks.

oh my goodness and Jackson misses it.

Still 10-3.

how is the game generally ?

Hope iestyn is ok. Some awful decision making by scarlets and being batterd at breakdown

How is Fenby not playing for Llandovery thirds?

Pretty good alive. Glasgow carrying the ball really well. Scarlets are going to find it tough to defend like this for the whole match.

A couple of unofrced errors creeping in, more so for the scarlets, but tis a fast paced match. I'm enjoying it

Update on Iestyn: tis a neck injury, not a head injury but it is still looking like the stretcher was a precaution.

Kicking from both sides to touch and at goal v hit and miss so far.

A most pertinent question Glas. again he's brining up his mixed bag of a rugby display. That was so not the time for a knock on!

10-3 at HT.

Scarlets lucky to be that close.

FFS!

JEdwards and Turnbull are playing pants. NOt supporting players at the breakdown much at all. Once again Scarlets turnedover, but this time when we are 5m out from Glasgow's try line.

Not good enough, getting irritated by our errors now.
Good play by Glasgow though, have to say.

Silly mistakes

Bugger thought that was on then

13 - 3 now, 50 mins gone.

Scarlets major contributors to their own downfall here.

phew get the kick

13 - 6

I thought it was on too, Cymro!


oop here comes Gardiner. Haven't seen him play for the Scarlets so far this season (I'm sure he has played I've just not seen him). Interesting to see how he goes.