THE HERALD REPORTS

Fans' favourite Hefin O'Hare has forced his way into Glasgow Warriors starting line-up for tonight's Magners League meeting with Cardiff Blues because his coaches believe the Welshman's style is currently better suited to facing his countrymen than big name summer signing Lome Fa'atau.

It is a measure of the Wrexham-born winger's popularity that he is among the few players at the club to have attracted an individual sponsor, not least because those providing that backing are the official supporters club.

"I really enjoy the way they react to me. It has lifted me so hopefully I'll keep performing for them and keep them cheering," said the 28-year-old, who has had a constant battle for regular starts since arriving in Glasgow two years ago.

That challenge looked to have intensified when Fa'atau and Bernie Stortoni, the former Argentina full-back, were signed in the summer and to date this season he has largely had to make do with an impact role, but the way he has performed when coming off the bench has underlined why his all-action style has made him so popular.

"We've got a big squad now at Glasgow and there are a lot of people in the squad with big reputations, but that is what we need to build for the future," said O'Hare. "Coming from a rugby league background I'm used to a situation where if you were ill and missed a couple of weeks training you weren't going to play again for the rest of the season. Glasgow's the big picture, though. Individual players come and go."

By contrast since arriving at the club following the World Cup and scoring a debut try, Samoan international winger Fa'atau has come in for substantial flak from the same supporters who love O'Hare's all-action style. Shade Munro, the Warriors assistant coach, yesterday admitted that the new recruit has some adjustments to make.

"Lome has not found his form yet and we've maybe not helped him by not giving him the ball to show what he can do. We have no doubt about what he is capable of, but he's probably got to learn that it's slightly different being a winger in the northern hemisphere as opposed to the southern hemisphere," Munro said of the former Wellington Hurricane.

"Playing for Wellington, Waikato and even Samoa to some extent, very talented teams playing top-of-the- ground rugby, he gets a lot of ball and the game does come to him, whereas here he's got to go looking for it and he's not quite used to that yet."

That forwards specialist Munro and Gary Mercer, the defence coach, fronted yesterday's weekly press conference instead of the head coach Sean Lineen was an indicator of where the emphasis has lain as they prepare for the visit of the table-topping Blues. While the timing of yesterday's announcement that the leaders are are without eight of their leading players for this match on the same day title sponsors Magners announced that they were showing their faith in the league's improving credibility by extending their sponsorship for a further year to the end of the 2008/09 season, it remains a powerful line-up. Furthermore Cardiff were well short of full strength when they gave the Warriors a thumping in their opening match of the season.

"It's about setpiece and it's about defence this week," said Munro. "We didn't perform particularly well down there and were well beaten up front. That has given us a real focus for this week. We have to get that right against Cardiff."

Both areas have also been criticised in the past fortnight, too, with Mercer admitting that he was particularly upset at conceding close to 60 points in their two European matches. However, he also noted wryly that the three tries conceded against Viadana last week came from positions when the Warriors had the ball. Perhaps that, then, is a further explanation of why Lineen, whose speciality is very much attack, opted to sit out yesterday's gathering.

12:01am today



By KEVIN FERRIE

This article was posted on 23-Nov-2007, 08:22 by Hugh Barrow.