Glasgow Warriors have made nine changes to the team that defeated Newport Gwent Dragons for the final Pool match of their 2009/10 Heineken Cup campaign against Biarritz on Sunday (24 January, kick-off 1.45pm local time, 12.45pm GMT).
Among the starting XV named today, all but two were included in Andy Robinson’s Scotland squad (announced yesterday) to train in St Andrews next week ahead of the opening rounds of the RBS 6 Nations.
Looking forward to this weekend’s game, Warriors head coach, Sean Lineen, said: “The players enjoy going over to France. We ran Biarritz close at Firhill and now have the opportunity to make amends.
“Training has been going well this week. Biarritz are an incredibly hard team to beat. They have some quality players so we need to make sure our discipline is good and we deal with their kicking game.”
Five of the nine changes are made in the pack (one positional) as internationalists Dougie Hall, Moray Low, Alastair Kellock and John Barclay are all back for their final club match before the international action. They replace Fergus Thomson, Ed Kalman, Dan Turner and Calum Forrester respectively. Kelly Brown reverts to blindside flanker due to the return of Barclay.
In the backs, Graeme Morrison returns to the centre where he partners Max Evans. As a result, Rob Dewey is moved to the right wing where he takes over from DTH van der Merwe as the Canadian international is ruled out due to a calf injury.
The half-backs are also changed as Scotland captain Chris Cusiter and in-form Dan Parks are both selected ahead of Colin Gregor and Ruaridh Jackson.
Reminiscing about the last time his squad travelled to the French coast, Lineen added: “Had our last encounter in Biarritz two seasons ago lasted just 74 minutes, we would’ve won. This time, make no mistake, we’re going across there to get a result.”
Glasgow Warriors team to play Biarritz in the Heineken Cup on Sunday 24 January (kick-off 1.45pm local time, 12.45pm GMT)
15 Bernardo Stortoni
14 Rob Dewey
13 Max Evans
12 Graeme Morrison
11 Thom Evans
10 Dan Parks
9 Chris Cusiter
1 Jon Welsh
2 Dougie Hall
3 Moray Low
4 Richie Gray
5 Alastair Kellock CAPTAIN
6 Kelly Brown
7 John Barclay
8 Johnnie Beattie
Glasgow’s bench will be confirmed before 12noon on Friday 22 January.

This article was posted on 21-Jan-2010, 19:43 by Hugh Barrow.