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Glasgow: Keep changing the guard

Playing as a team: Glasgow Warriors swarm to support Tommy Seymour in Friday's PRO12 semi-final.
Playing as a team: Glasgow Warriors swarm to support Tommy Seymour in Friday's PRO12 semi-final.

There’s something fitting about Glasgow Warriors having to go through the reigning PRO12 champions Leinster to get their big prize of the RaboDirect PRO12 title.

The three-time European champions Leinster have been their toughest nut to crack, and they’re always quoted by the Warriors as the benchmark they aspire to.

There’s also the memory of last year’s PRO12 semi-final, also at the RDS, where Glasgow bested Leinster in all stats counts bar two; discipline, and the only one that really matters, the scoreboard.

No matter that most observers thought Glasgow were the better team, just like Ulster were in Saturday’s second semi-final, Leinster progressed.

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Gregor Townsend’s big thing this year is what press men have been calling the “Rotation Tombola”.

So great has been the head coach’s desire to change his team – never starting a fly-half twice in succession during the current run of nine games unbeaten – that press men envisage Toony and his coaches putting names into a drum, spinning the handle, and picking his team at random.

Such has been the success of the Warriors recently that Toony Tombola is being claimed as genius. However, the self-same policy was thought of as unsettling by many frustrated Scotstoun diehards when the team were labouring through games before Christmas.

Results mean everything. So while Andy Robinson changing his centre combination eight times in a row when Scotland coach and Scott Johnson putting out a different back row in seven straight games creates confusion, Toony Tombola is somehow inspired.

In a club scenario, however, it makes sense to rotate, as long as you have the resources Townsend has.

The care in which the Glasgow management have constructed their expanded squad, along with the effort to create a strong team “culture” which everyone has bought into, have been the keys to their success. While Edinburgh over the last three seasons signed a number of foreign journeyman players at least close to their sell-by date, Sean Lineen and his successor Townsend, with forwards coach Shade Munro an understated but influential presence, swept up all the best young Scottish talent.

In addition, Glasgow have been astute with their imports. Sean Maitland and Josh Strauss have been hugely influential, and the flying Fijians Niko Matawalu and Leone Nakarawa, neither of whom had played pro rugby at 15s before, have been a revelation.

Nakarawa’s early introduction in the semi-final might have been the key to the entire match. His unorthodox, athletic style was a huge problem for a Munster defence prepared for the direct approach of Strauss, and he’s an option in the second row and at No 8 now.

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One apparent facet of Toony Tombola was the surprise omission of Stuart Hogg from the semi-final. It was good to see Hoggy at the touchline, raucously encouraging his replacement Peter Murchie as he took the field.

Good, because he won’t have taken omission well. It’s been a difficult season for the young full-back, with injury, frustration spilling over into petulance in Cardiff, and the unsettling nature of the rotation policy.

Hoggy was spotted in Belfast being courted by Ulster a few weeks ago, in the midst of the play-off run. A big misjudgement by the 21-year-old, especially with a year left on his six-figure salary contract and Ulster unlikely to stump up the extra readies to get him released.

Then there was the clear huff he took at being denied a first-half hat-trick in the last regular season game against Zebre. Sure, Niko Matawalu was a bit cheeky in “pinching” the try, but it was the sixth score against Zebre, and in the context of the team effort it mattered not a jot who scored it.

Hoggy stayed inside at half-time in that game citing a twinge in his back. I suspect that will not have gone down well with team-mates or coaches.

Townsend said his omission was on form and that Hogg hadn’t had enough games recently, but Sean Lamont’s presence on the bench with one game back since injury contradicted that.

It might well have been a shot across his young star’s bows. If it was, perhaps Hogg might do well to heed it, as the team have got this far with him having an pretty peripheral role this season.

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With the rotation policy it’s a tough job to pick a XV to start the final at the RDS. Also, there’s a good deal of patching up to do after the brutal nature of the semi-final.

I’d be inclined to leave the pack well alone if everyone’s fit. Harley-Fusaro-Strauss is the best balanced back row, Ryan Grant, Dougie Hall and Jon Welsh the best scrummaging front row, although Gordon Reid will let no-one down if Grant isn’t fit.

Al Kellock’s lineout skills require his presence against Leinster’s flagpole Devin Toner. Jonny Gray is just about the first name on the teamsheet.

At half-back, no change either. Finn Russell deserves to be first choice on his form of the last two months, and with either Ruaridh Jackson or Duncan Weir on the bench he can switch to 12 if required. The Stirling-born 21-year-old is a fixture already.

In the backs, however, they’ll need a little more subtlety to breach Leinster’s swarming defence. For that I’d have Peter Horne at inside centre, moving Alex Dunbar to 13. Maitland and Seymour stay on the wings, and, for all that it would be a huge about-face, it should be Hogg at full-back.

He’s still the best strike weapon in Scottish rugby, and they’ll need that at the RDS.