Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
NZ NZ

It's rotten luck Glasgow will be up close and personal with Exeter's first real 'statement' signing

By Jamie Lyall
Stuart Hogg is the only Scotland player asked to start again against France (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Stuart Hogg waved goodbye to Scotstoun last month on the sort of riotous, feverish night for which the place and Glasgow Warriors have become famous, his own magnificence going a long way to turning a little athletics ground into a bubbling cauldron of rugby frenzy.

ADVERTISEMENT

With Ulster dealt a thunderous Guinness PRO14 semi-final walloping, the Hogg family wandered around the pitch embracing it all under the canopy of a beautiful mauve sunset. 

There were tears and smiles and above all gratitude in the ovation – gratitude from the supporters for what Hogg has given them for the better part of a decade; gratitude from Hogg for how they have cherished him.

The ultimate finale, of course, was sickening. Hogg clattered by Rob Kearney and led stupefied to the touchline. Leinster the PRO14 champions at Celtic Park on a night Glasgow were desperate to make their own.

Hogg might very well be a Warrior again one day but he will have a homecoming sooner than he would have dared imagine next season. His new team, Exeter Chiefs, have been drawn alongside Glasgow in Pool Two of the Champions Cup.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Scotstoun is a very special place. We’ve loved every minute. Thank you. X

A post shared by Stuart W Hogg (@stuarthogg21) on

Exeter are one of English rugby’s twin heavyweights, for the Chiefs and Saracens are light years ahead of anything else in the Gallagher Premiership. Saracens made embarrassingly light work of Glasgow en route to the European crown last year while putting Chiefs away in the English final to win their fourth title in five years.

ADVERTISEMENT

Domestically, Exeter are not far behind. Rob Baxter has taken his team to the past four Premiership finals, winning one in 2017. They topped the league table by eight points in the last campaign, conceded fewer points than anyone else, scored an average of almost 29 per regular-season match and got try bonus points in 14 of their 22 games.

Chiefs are a wonderful club who play some glorious rugby, a team built the right way by Baxter and propelled up the leagues with local, home-grown talent at its core. Jack Nowell, Henry Slade, Luke Cowan-Dickie, Sam Simmonds and Hogg’s Scotland pal Sam Skinner have all emerged on Baxter’s watch.

Generally, their recruitment policy has been to add value and experience without spending big. Hogg is a different kind of capture – arguably, their first real ‘statement’ signing, a player who would be right in the mix for any World XV.

ADVERTISEMENT

The hope is that he can take them on in the Champions Cup where they have only once made it as far as the quarter-finals. They are, without doubt, the biggest beasts in the pool and with Hogg in the van they will feel next season ought to be the campaign where they truly arrive on the continental stage.

Also in with Exeter and Glasgow are La Rochelle, one of French rugby’s coming teams. They put a Racing 92 side that featured Leone Nakarawa, Finn Russell, Teddy Thomas, Virimi Vakatawa and Simon Zebo out of the Top 14 play-offs away from home – that’s a hell of a feat. 

La Rochelle aren’t awash with galacticos in the way that many of the top French clubs are. Uini Atonio, Marc Andreu, Victor Vito and Tawera Kerr-Barlow are among their biggest names and the former Glasgow prop, Sila Puafisi, is a member of their pack.

There have been reports of unrest amid the club hierarchy of late – specifically, that their highly-rated and now ex-coach, former France full-back Xavier Garbajosa, saw his remit and influence diminish when Jono Gibbes arrived last year above him as director of rugby. 

Nonetheless, Gibbes, Garbajosa and the rest got them into the Top 14 semi-finals and back at Europe’s top table. Garbajosa is gone now, bound for Vern Cotter’s Montpellier, and La Rochelle have replaced him with Ireland’s Ronan O’Gara, who has burnished his reputation as a young coach at the Crusaders.

In last year’s Top 14, La Rochelle lost only three games at home. They had the league’s top points-scorer in Ihaia West, beat Clermont, Racing, and Stade Francais at the Stade Marcel-Deflandre, put over 70 points on Pau and over 80 on Bordeaux-Begles. Glasgow will almost certainly have to go there and win.

Like Hogg, Byron McGuigan, Josh Strauss and his majestic beard will also be back at Scotstoun in the colours of Sale Sharks, assuming the latter is still at the club by the end of the summer. The big No8 has long desired to test himself in the Top 14 and though he has another year on his contract in Manchester, there have been eyes trained on him from across the Channel.

Sale are the least sexy of Glasgow’s three opponents but that doesn’t make them a soft target. In fact, given the cattle they’re recruiting, they could present the sternest physical challenge of the lot – not an area in which Glasgow have excelled under Dave Rennie. 

The Sharks are tooling up with an arsenal of South African talent, most notably the Springboks prop Coenie Oosthuizen and lock Lood de Jager. Denny Solomona was the league’s joint-top try-scorer last year, at 20 years old Tom Curry had an outrageously good season for club and England and in Faf de Klerk, Steve Diamond has one of world rugby’s finest scrum-halves.

Sale were woefully inconsistent last season, lurching from bottom place after a hopeless start to the campaign to fourth in the New Year, and ending up seventh. Their form on the road was particularly poor but they were always capable of a big performance, putting Saracens to the sword as recently as January.

There’s a lot of excitement now about the investment in the playing squad and the kind of ground that could be gained this time around. If Sale get their act together, they, too, will be a major proposition for Glasgow.

In the back end of last season, Warriors finally found their muscles under Rennie, proving they could be more than a team of stunning elan built on weak foundations. They have made the Champions Cup quarter-finals twice, but each time faced a trip to Allianz Park and were given a thorough pasting. 

You still feel they need a little more grunt, a monster lock or a behemoth blindside flanker to rumble them over the gain line and truly crack Europe. They have no obvious heir to Hogg at full-back and they do not have the financial muscle to sign a replacement of similar calibre. 

The summer recruitment will be fascinating and absolutely pivotal, particularly given Glasgow could conceivably lose 20 players to the World Cup and most of that contingent to the Six Nations only a few months later. Their signings and their depth will face immense scrutiny.

This is Rennie’s third season in charge and quite possibly his last, with the New Zealander’s one-year contract extension leaving him well placed to capitalise on any international vacancies in the wake of Japan. How painfully close to silverware Glasgow came last month and how much he and his players long for a tangible reward for their gains.

Hogg is only just out the door, the campaign barely wrapped, but such is the way of modern rugby, already a new and exacting season beckons.

WATCH: Jim Hamilton catches up with Stuart Hogg in the Rugby Pass Ventures series

Video Spacer
ADVERTISEMENT

Join free

Aotearoa Rugby Podcast | Episode 6

Sam Warburton | The Big Jim Show | Full Episode

Japan Rugby League One | Sungoliath v Eagles | Full Match Replay

Japan Rugby League One | Spears v Wild Knights | Full Match Replay

Boks Office | Episode 10 | Six Nations Final Round Review

Aotearoa Rugby Podcast | How can New Zealand rugby beat this Ireland team

Beyond 80 | Episode 5

Rugby Europe Men's Championship Final | Georgia v Portugal | Full Match Replay

Trending on RugbyPass

Comments

Join free and tell us what you really think!

Sign up for free
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest Features

Comments on RugbyPass

A
Adrian 22 minutes ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

6 Go to comments
T
Trevor 3 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

21 Go to comments
B
Bull Shark 7 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

Of the rugby I’ve born witness to in my lifetime - 1990 to date - I recognize great players throughout those years. But I have no doubt the game and the players are on average better today. So I doubt going back further is going to prove me wrong. The technical components of the game, set pieces, scrums, kicks, kicks at goal. And in general tactics employed are far more efficient, accurate and polished. Professional athletes that have invested countless hours on being accurate. There is one nation though that may be fairly competitive in any era - and that for me is the all blacks. And New Zealand players in general. NZ produces startling athletes who have fantastic ball skills. And then the odd phenomenon like Brooke. Lomu. Mcaw. Carter. Better than comparing players and teams across eras - I’ve often had this thought - that it would be very interesting to have a version of the game that is closer to its original form. What would the game look like today if the rules were rolled back. Not rules that promote safety obviously - but rules like: - a try being worth 1 point and conversion 2 points. Hence the term “try”. Earning a try at goals. Would we see more attacking play? - no lifting in the lineouts. - rucks and break down laws in general. They looked like wrestling matches in bygone eras. I wonder what a game applying 1995 rules would look like with modern players. It may be a daft exercise, but it would make for an interesting spectacle celebrating “purer” forms of the game that roll back the rules dramatically by a few versions. Would we come to learn that some of the rules/combinations of the rules we see today have actually made the game less attractive? I’d love to see an exhibition match like that.

29 Go to comments
TRENDING
TRENDING Dean Richards set for return to rugby management Dean Richards set for return to rugby management
Search