IF Glasgow Warriors are to have a chance in tonight's match against Munster, they are going to have to hold their own in the set-piece. It will be no mean feat against the league leaders should they do so, but when you consider Dave Rennie will be fielding a front row in which the most-experienced player is only 21, then the scale of the task becomes a little clearer.
That said, Zander Fagerson is something of a prodigy and if he has to be the wise old head, then he is more than happy with assuming the mantle. The other two in the starting front row, Jamie Bhatti and George Turner, may both be 24 but Bhatti has played only nine games. Turner has played in 16 but those appearances are spread over five years and after moving from Edinburgh in the summer he is only now getting his first run of matches.
It is a raw unit while injuries and the late arrival of some imports from the Southern Hemisphere mean there is not much in the way of experienced backup. The pressure is truly on Fagerson, who started with an 80-minute stint in Connacht before playing a more routine role in the two following games.
"You’ve just got to dig deep, you don’t have any choice," he said. "I want to play every week so if I get picked it’s happy days. If the coach tells me I can play then I want to play. I want to play as much as I can because it’s the only way to get better, the only way to improve. There is a rotation policy for the Scotland players and you get told when you’re having a week off, but that’s the coach’s decision.
"You can train as much as you want in pre-season, but there’s nothing like game time. The games have been okay and I feel I’m getting my fitness back up to where it was in the middle of last season. I’m feeling fit, enjoying the game time and getting some scrums under my belt."
The other side of the coin is that he is one of the players who does have a mental hangover from last season's four defeats by Munster. Not that it daunts him, more that it makes him even more determined to reverse the results.
"Personally, Munster has always been a tough encounter. They are one of the bogey teams and we either do well or we don’t. If we do the basics well and get our gameplan right then we will get the win," he said. "When we played the Blues last weekend, they were good, but Munster are at a different level. They have a different style of play and they are going well. We have a tight-knit squad and really good strength in depth this year, though. Training has been really intense."
So you can expect another big shift from the big prop: "We definitely need a win this weekend. Training has been intense, really tough. Were hoping we can put in an 80-minute performance and get the win," he said.
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