DTH van der Merwe looks set to make his first appearance in three years for Glasgow Warriors on Friday night after impressing in training since his return to the club last week.
However, backs coach Kenny Murray has warned the Canadian international who was an automatic choice when he played his last match for the club as the Pro12 title was won in 2015, that like the Scotland regulars who are returning to the fold, he faces a real battle to be in the team come this season’s play-offs.
“We’ve got five games now to the play-offs, but the big thing for us is going to be competition for places,” said Murray.
“We’re going to have guys every game we play now fighting for places, because nobody’s going to be guaranteed a position in that team.
“You look at all the guys who have played well for Scotland, they know coming back in here that there’s a lot of other players here are really pushing to get their spot.”
However, Murray knows that van der Merwe’s finishing power could prove crucial, as it did when he scored in both the semi-final and final as the club claimed its only major piece of silverware to date.
“It’s great to have him back in. He’s trained last week, his first week back in and looked really sharp, exactly what he was when he left, really good ball carrying, looked really good on his feet and round the pitch as well,” Murray observed.
“For the run-in we’re going to need our X-factor players and he’s a guy who has that in abundance.”
For this weekend’s visit of Zebre the Warriors who started regularly for Scotland during the Six Nations, including Stuart Hogg, Huw Jones, Finn Russell and Jonny Gray, are set to be rested and Murray noted that while Glasgow’s failure to reach the knockout stages of Europe next weekend means they have some leeway in terms of an upcoming opportunity to rest players, they are in a relatively strong position to do so.
“We’ll manage it, so some guys will definitely be unavailable depending on who’s played a lot of game time. Some guys maybe didn’t get as much so we’ve got an opportunity to bring them back in,” Murray said. “We’ve obviously got the following week when we don’t have a game that weekend, so we’ve got an opportunity to rest guys a bit more that week.
“So, we will look to have a few involved this week, but not all of them, obviously.
“I think we’re in as good a position now at this stage of the season as we have in all the time I’ve been here. We’ve got Pat Macarthur out and Leo Sarto’s had an operation, but other than that every other player who’s been out is back and there’s obviously been a few knocks now and again, but there’s nothing major.
“So we’re anticipating going into this final run-in with pretty much as strong a squad maybe apart from one or two as we’ve had, which is great for us.”
That clearly has the potential to bring a real edge to how the team prepares in the remaining weeks of the season.
“Obviously with the big numbers back training will see a real increase in intensity and tempo and because guys are fighting for positions we’ll expect it to ramp up a wee bit.
“We need to manage that as coaches, but I’m looking forward to training the next four weeks,” said Murray.
However, there is also a desire to know exactly what their schedule is as quickly as possible, which means securing top spot in Conference A and a guaranteed home semi-final as soon as they can, which could be in their next two matches.
“Obviously, we want to get it all done as quickly as we can so that we can get that confidence that we know we finished top,” Murray, who joined the Warriors coaching staff in 2013, insisted.
“Scarlets have got a big game this week against Munster.
“If Scarlets were to lose and Edinburgh win against Connacht, then they’re only a few points difference, so every other team’s got things to play for. Edinburgh did us a massive favour at the weekend beating Munster, so we know that 10 points for us now will pretty much guarantee top spot because we’re 11 points ahead and Munster can only get 20 out of their remaining four games.
“The starting point for that is this game at the weekend,” Murray added.
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