Glasgow coach Sean Lineen has named an unchanged starting XV for Saturday's Heineken Cup match with Bath at the Rec (ko 1.30pm).
The fixture presents Sean Lineen’s men with the chance to record a first away win on English soil in the competition, a feat that would keep alive their hopes of claiming an Amlin Challenge Cup quarter-final spot.
The Warriors lost narrowly on both their previous Heineken Cup visits to the Rec, 35-31 in season 2008/9 and 31-26 in 2005/6. They did, however, win the first of this season’s meetings between the teams, 26-21 at Firhill last November.
Sean told www.glasgowwarriors.org: “We know our chance of making the Heineken quarter-finals has gone, but make no mistake, this is another huge game for us this weekend.
“There is a massive amount at stake in any number of senses. First and foremost, we need to win to give ourselves a chance in terms of the Amlin quarter-finals, while beating a Premiership team on their own patch would be a significant achievement in itself.
“Bath are a tremendous, proud club with great traditions. They set the standard for clubs like ourselves in terms of where we aspire to get to. They’ll be hungry to finish their Heineken campaign with a strong performance, so we know just how tough it will be to achieve the right result.
“We were very frustrated not to beat the reigning European champions [Leinster] last week, and I’m delighted the players aren’t satisfied by having run a quality side like that so close. We want to be winning these big games, and it’s important we set down a marker this weekend for the battles that are coming our way in the RaboDirect PRO12.”
The Glasgow coach has kept faith with the side that went down 23-16 to the Dubliners last Sunday, the only changes to his 23 coming on the bench where Ryan Wilson, Peter Murchie and Henry Pyrgos come in for Johnnie Beattie (elbow), Troy Nathan (back) and Colin Gregor respectively.
Colin, a contracted Scotland 7s player, has returned to the 7s squad to continue preparations for the forthcoming Wellington and Las Vegas legs of the HSBC Sevens World Series.
Sean commented: “With the intensity and physicality of modern professional rugby, especially the Heineken Cup, it’s quite unusual to send out exactly the same XV two weeks in a row, but this group made clear what they can do last weekend and they deserve the opportunity to help us go that one step further on Saturday.
“As our record in England shows, it takes something really special to win on a Premiership ground: the challenge is to do something we’ve never done before, and we need everyone to rise to that.”
Glasgow Warriors

15 Rory Lamont
14 Tommy Seymour
13 Stuart Hogg
12 Graeme Morrison
11 Colin Shaw
10 Duncan Weir
9 Chris Cusiter
1 Jon Welsh
2 Pat MacArthur
3 Ed Kalman
4 Richie Gray
5 Alastair Kellock (Captain)
6 Robert Harley
7 Chris Fusaro
8 John Barclay
Substitutes
16 Dougie Hall
17 Gordon Reid
18 Ryan Grant
19 Tom Ryder

This article was posted on 19-Jan-2012, 15:39 by Hugh Barrow.