Singleton to play first game since heart issue as three set for Glasgow debuts

Glasgow will field eight players released by Scotland in Friday’s URC clash with the Lions despite being without another 11 players retained by Gregor Townsend before their first November Nations Championship game against New Zealand next week.

Five of the released players – Ollie Smith, Stafford McDowall, George Horne, Alex Craig and Jamie Ritchie – will start the game at Scotstoun, with three more – Gregor Hiddleston, Max Williamson and Seb Stephen – deployed from the bench.

Head coach Franco Smith has also handed debuts to recent short-term signing Jack Singleton, the former Gloucester and England hooker whose last game was in September 2025 before suffering a heart attack and subsequently having stents fitted, and 20-year-old academy prop Jake Shearer.

Summer arrival Bayley Kuenzle will get a first competitive start on the wing after four outings off the bench, centre Johnny Ventisei will get a first senior outing of the season while another academy player, Cameron van Wyk, is poised for his debut off the bench.

Shearer’s inclusion is because Townsend has opted to retain Rory Sutherland ahead of the meeting with the All Blacks as well as fellow Glasgow loosehead Nathan McBeth, whose training has been restricted this week owing to an arm injury.

“He has just developed some pins and needles in his arm,” Smith reported. “That can be the cause of it or it can even be that he slept on that part of his neck wrongly. He didn’t train most of this week with Scotland and I think the precautionary decision was made.”

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30 Oct 26

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Smith is also without full-back Josh McKay, who qualifies for Scotland mid-way through the November programme and was rested for the past two matches, but who injured his  hamstring while warming up with the team before their win against Benetton last week.

“I think he was over-keen and over-excited,” Smith explained. “In the last action of the warm-up, he just felt his hamstring, and that’s come back as a Grade 1B [minor strain or tear].

“It’s also a very light strain. Again, with the excitement, his name has been mentioned [for Scotland], and I think it’s important to keep him as fit as possible now and in the next weeks.”

New South African No.8 Ruwald van der Merwe has also sustained a hamstring strain.

“Funnily enough, for Ruwald, with the sudden drop in temperature, I think his normal warm-up routines from South Africa are not ones that he will be able to use here,” Smith said. “I think that maybe led to him tightening up in the last week. I don’t want to take a risk now of having a big injury so early in the season if we do push him. It’s just a very low-grade hamstring injury. Probably, if we played next week, he would have been fine.”

With two of Scotland’s three hookers, Gregor Hiddleston and Seb Stephen, both being utilised as replacements – Stephen possibly in a hybrid, ball-carrying back-row role – Singleton, 31, will get the chance to resume his career from the start.

“He’s been training so well and he’s so well prepared,” Smith said. “One of the things we want for this week is energy and enthusiasm, and he’s brought so much from that perspective.

“Having had the two players [Hiddleston and Stephen] involved with Scotland this whole week, it allowed us to give him the best chance to be prepared for a start.

“I’m excited to see what he can bring. He’s ready. You can just imagine how keen he is to get back into the mix.”

Singleton recently spoke about the heart issue that brought a halt to his career with Gloucester, who honoured his contract from last September until the summer but decided not to offer him a new deal beyond that point.

“It was a hereditary condition that we didn’t know about,” he revealed. “I had an angiogram. So I’ve had some stents and balloons inserted to help open up my arteries. And that was in September and then the follow-up [surgery] in December. And since the operations and procedures that I’ve had, and the drugs that I’m now taking, everything’s more under control. So I’m in a much safer spot than I was 16 months ago when I was playing.”

Grant exit ‘not much of a disruption’

Smith also addressed this week’s abrupt departure of assistant coach Roddy Grant following an internal disciplinary process.

Grant, who worked predominantly with the forwards on the breakdown and contact, will not be replaced, with Smith preferring to share the workload with his chief lieutenants Nigel Carolan (attack) and Scott Forrest (defence) and assorted academy coaches.

“Obviously we’re disappointed with everything that happened, but that’s that,” Smith said. “It wasn’t a difficult situation at all. It was well dealt with by [Warriors managing director] Kenny Brown, and from his leadership perspective, we carried on.

“We’ve coached without another assistant coach before. I prefer it that way in a certain way, and we were always thinking Roddy would add value to his coaching career by involving him.

“It was always just myself and [former defence coach] Pete Murchie and Nigel Carolan in the beginning. So it’s back to me being with Scott and Nigel, and then I’ve got all the assistants, from [academy coaches] Shane Munro and Duncan Weir to [scrum coach] Alasdair Dickinson.

“So, we have enough people around. Everybody knows what they’re doing. I think the opportunity was there to enhance another coach, and that didn’t work out. But we have more than enough.

“From a coaching perspective, it hasn’t been a disruption and obviously the players just adapted and went on with their business, so not much of a disruption.”

Asked whether he felt let down by Grant’s conduct, Smith added: “Look, we’re a tight ship here and everybody knows exactly what my values are and where we stand and how we do things here.

“The culture of the club has been tried and tested over the last five years, and it comes up flying. That is what I’m proud of. This incident didn’t influence anything that we did or do or want to become, or want to do, and the type of messaging that we give to the players.

“Again, we wanted to give another person an opportunity to be involved in this environment and grow their coaching career. It’s not what we can get, it’s what we can give, and that was the approach.”

Glasgow team v Lions: 15 Ollie Smith, 14 Bayley Kuenzle, 13 Johnny Ventisei, 12 Stafford McDowall (capt), 11 Fergus Watson, 10 Dan Lancaster, 9 George Horne; 1 Jake Shearer, 2 Jack Singleton, 3 Fin Richardson, 4 Alex Craig, 5 Jare Oguntibeju, 6 Jamie Ritchie, 7 Macenzzie Duncan, 8 Euan Ferrie.

Replacements: 16 Gregor Hiddleston, 17 Patrick Schickerling, 18 Sam Talakai, 19 Max Williamson, 20 Ally Miller, 21 Seb Stephen, 22 Callum Reidy, 23 Cameron van Wyk.