No wonder Mrs Gregor had an extra spring in her step at the LA gym yesterday she may have known that son Colin who goes by the name Budgie was about to be named captain for this weeks encounter with the Dragons
Kevin notes he is the second oldest of the homegrown talent but that homegrown does include some Welsh influence
He is pictured with Hawks team of 03 alongside Warriors future supremo Kenny Baillie at Wanderers Club Jo Burg


The Herald reports

RARING TO GO: the versatile Colin Gregor is another getting a rare chance in the starting XV and he captains Warriors for the first time from scrum-half tomorrow night.
Kevin Ferrie

Published on 14 Jan 2010
Ruaridh Jackson will make his first start of the season tomorrow night after having agreed a new two-year deal with Glasgow Warriors.

The 21-year-old, who is poised to become the club’s play-maker in the post-Dan Parks era, is part of a much-changed side as the Magners League leaders make their priorities clear by leaving out six international players for the visit of Newport Gwent Dragons – John Barclay, Chris Cusiter, Dougie Hall, Alastair Kellock, Moray Low and Graeme Morrison – who have been regulars.

With Richie Vernon, who started both of the wins against Edinburgh, also still out, and Parks dropping to the bench, the team is vastly overhauled as Jackson, Colin Gregor, Rob Dewey, Fergus Thomson, Ed Kalman, Dan Turner and Callum Forrester come in.

Yet as Sean Lineen, their head coach, pointed out, it remains an exciting looking back division, while the pack, too, boasts considerable experience so should be capable of holding its own. It will be their job to give Jackson the chance to unleash those backs and remind everyone why he is seen as potentially boasting the answer to Scotland’s problems at stand-off.

For his part Jackson is naturally champing at the bit, having stormed into the public consciousness a year ago with a dazzling individual display against Bath in the Heineken Cup before performing with real authority for Scotland A when the IRB Nations Cup was won last summer.

Obviously Dan’s moving which will give me a more open chance at the 10 jersey, but there’s other competition within the squad
Ruaridh Jackson
Particularly so when he has spent most of this season sidelined because of a complicated shoulder dislocation suffered in the act of scoring a spectacular try moments after taking
the field as a replacement during Glasgow’s first Magners League match this season.

Yet the youngster’s patience shows through in his attitude to understudying Parks, who was out of form when Jackson ousted him from the starting line-up a year ago but is now right back on his game in what is his final season at the club. He acknowledges, too, that he is by no means assured of getting things all his way when Parks leaves.

“Obviously Dan’s moving which will give me a more open chance at the 10 jersey, but there’s other competition within the squad,” he said. “Budgie [Colin Gregor] has been playing well this season, at both 9 and 10, so he wants to go for one of those. So there’s competition around and whether they’ve found someone else I don’t know, but I want a crack at it with some good time in the 10 jersey.”

Since he is only 28 yet is the second oldest homegrown Scot in the entire squad, that is a measure of the youthful potential at this club and for Jackson it is a combination of that as well as his own development requirements that have persuaded him that his immediate future at least should lie in Glasgow.

“It’s a mixture of both,” he said. “Glasgow are showing this season, certainly in the Magners League, that we’ve got the potential to be a top side and hopefully in Europe in the years to come. So I really want to be part of that, but I think it’s a good place for development as well. The guys around me have been doing really well and the coaching staff’s good.”

Lineen yesterday described this as Glasgow’s strongest ever squad, but he is tight-lipped about contract negotiations, saying only that the make-up of next season’s squad will be decided in the next few weeks. Gordon McKie, the SRU’s chief executive, has publicly made it clear that budgets will, if anything, be reduced for the coming season.

Yet with so many of these promising players out of contract having made reputations for themselves in the last two seasons, they are entitled to significant wage increases. Given the way Glasgow overran Gloucester last month it was almost inevitable that their largely Scottish management would take note and John Barclay and John Beattie have been linked with them.

Since Kelly Brown is also out of contract while Vernon is on the books, it seems highly unlikely that they can hang on to all four international back-row forwards.

The level of ambition shown by the SRU during these contract negotiations will, though, clearly indicate whether youngsters like Jackson are right to believe they are in the right place.

This article was originally posted on 14-Jan-2010, 07:54 by Hugh Barrow.
Last updated by Hugh Barrow on 14-Jan-2010, 08:26.